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FOUNDED  EV  JOHN  D.  ROCKEFELLER 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO   THE  FACULTIES   OF    THE   GRADUATE  SCHOOLS  OF  ARTS, 

LITERATURE,    AND    SCIENCE,    IN    CANDIDACY    FOR    THE 

DEGREE    OF    DOCTOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY 

(department  of  pedagogy) 


BY 

WILLIAM  ARTHUR  CLARK,  A.M.  (Harvard),  Ph.D.  (Chicago) 


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"  To  know  how  to  suggest  is  the  great  art  of  teaching." 

— Amiers  Journal. 


PRINTED  A  T  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF   CHIC  A  GO   PRESS 


ill 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 

The  publication  of  this  thesis  has  been  delayed  in  the  hope  that 
opportunity  would  be  found  for  a  fuller  statement  of  the  application 
of  the  fundamental  principle  of  guidance  through  suggestion  to  prac- 
tical school  work ;  but  no  time  has  been  found  for  such  revision,  and 
the  dissertation  is  now  given  to  the  printer  in  the  form  in  which  it  was 
originally  accepted  by  the  Faculties. 

W.  A.  Clark. 
Nebraska  State  Normal  School, 
January,  1903. 


ANALYSIS  OF   C0NTP:NTS. 

I.  Problem  Stated.  rAcx 

1.  Nature  and  method  of.  the  discussion 9 

a)   Constructive  and  expository,  rather  than  research. 

6)    Formulation  and  discussion  of  a  single  law  of  pedagogy. 
c)    A  view  of  the  whole  field  from  a  definite  standpoint. 

2.  Pedagogy  and  its  laws  -.--.....     iq 
a)    The  science  of  education. 

6)  What  a  science  is. 

c)  Education  as  the  subject-matter  of  pedagogy. 

d)  Accumulation  of  material  for  a  science  of  education. 

e)  Pedagogy  a  normative  science. 

II.  Mental  Growth. 

1.  Nature  of  growth  in  general  .-----.-12 
a)    Definition  of  growth. 

6)    "Enlargement  "  and  "organization  "  as  factors  in  growth. 

c)  All  growth  through  functioning  of  the  organism. 

2.  How  mind  grows  -----..--.13 
a)   Analogy  to  the  growth  of  the  plant. 

d)  Increase  in  "mental  volume"  and  reorganization  of  "mental  struc- 

ture." 
c)    Source  of  the  materials. 
(f)  Rubbed  into  conscious  life  by  the  friction  of  the  environment. 

e)  Saturation  of  the  life  by  the  content  of  common  consciousness. 
/)  Making  the  race  knowledge  individual  knowledge. 

III.  Guiding  the  Mental  Life  of  Another. 

1.  A  common  assumption  in  all  education 15 

a)    Each  person  builds  his  own  life  out  of  the  available  materials  and 

under  the  limitations  of  his  environment. 
i>)    But    one    person    may    intentionally  influence    the    life  of   another, 
determining  in  a  large  measure  its  general  trend  and  character, 
without  destroying  its  autonomy. 

2.  Means  of  guidance        -  IS 

a)   By  ordering  the  materials. 

3)    By  determining  the  functioning  in  expression. 

IV.  Nature  of  Suggestion  and  Reaction. 

I.    Two  uses  of  the  word  "  suggest " 16 

^  a)   One  idea  suggests  another. 

(i)  Use  in  the  "association  of  psychology." 
(2)  Continuity  of  the  life  current. 

5 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION 

PAGE 

(3)  Professor  James's  criticism. 
b)    One  person  suggests  an  idea  to  another, 
(i;  The  introduction  of  an  "image." 

(2)  Nature  of  "reaction." 

(3)  Suggestion  and  reaction  not  successive  stages. 

2.  The  two  schools  of  hypnotic  theory 18 

a)  The  "  neurosis  theory." 

b)  The  "  suggestion  theory." 

c)  Views  of  Bernheim,  Wundt,  Titchener,  and  James. 

3.  Two  important  facts  in  the  suggestion  theory  of  hypnotism   -         -         -     19 

a)  The  consciousness  of  the  hypnotized  person. 

b)  Self-determination  in  hypnotic  action. 

4.  Suggestion  in  normal  life       .-..-----     20 

a)  Inoculating  with  an  idea. 

b)  Compared  with  hypnotic  suggestion. 

c)  Illustration  :  nature  of  a  "  conversation." 

5.  "/wtVaAow"  is  through  suggestion  -------     21 

a)  Vagueness  of  the  term. 

b)  Aristotle's  use  of  it. 

c)  Baldwin,  Harris,  and  Preyer. 

d)  Guyau's  view  of  the  process. 

e)  "Imitation"  vs.  "originality." 

V.  Suggestion  in  Educative  Guidance. 

1.  Nature  of  education "-  -24 

a)  Formal  definition. 

b)  Explication  of  the  definition. 

(1)  Demands  two  parties  :  teacher  and  pupil. 

(2)  Limited  to  "  formal  education." 

(3)  Psychological  and  sociological  conceptions. 

(4)  Product  and  process  conceptions. 

(5)  From  the  standpoint  of  the  teacher  or  from  that  of  the  pupil. 

(6)  Critical  summary. 

2.  Teaching      - ^° 

a)  Definition. 

b)  No  teaching  without  learning. 

c)  Nature  of  "  instruction." 

d)  Nature  of  "discipline." 

3.  Affirmative  character  of  all  education    -.-----"    3° 

a)  Encouraging  and  aiding  growth. 

b)  Leading  to  life  through  life. 

4.  The  law  of  educative  guidance      -         -         -         -         ■         •         ■         "31 

a)  No  education  apart  from  suggestion. 

b)  The  teacher  guides  from  within. 

c)  Pedagogical  suggestion  a  normal  life  process. 

d)  Humanity  essentially  good. 

e)  Examples  of  particular  teaching  acts. 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  7 

rAGK 

5.  Unintentional  influencing      -  34 

a)  Huntington's  "unconscious  tuition." 

b)  Educative  guidance  essentially  intentional. 

c)  Employing  life  consciously  to  guide  life. 

6.  Study  -         -         -  ■      -         -         -         -         •         -         -         -         -         -36 

a)  What  study  is. 

b)  Teaching  is  inciting  to  study. 

7.  The  "  recitation" 37 

a)  Function  of  the  recitation. 

b)  Importance  in  school  work. 

8.  The  "school" 38 

a)  What  a  school  is. 

b)  The  teacher's  place  in  the  school. 

c)  The  "  curriculum." 

g.    Punishment  ------------39 

a)   Definition  and  explication. 
b')    The  three  ends  of  punishment. 

f)  Character  of  school  punishment. 
^)  Examples  of  educative  punishment. 

e)    Punishment  for  neglect  to  do  the  right. 
/)  Punishment  to  be  avoided. 

g)  Example  in  the  Elmira  Reformatory. 

VI.  Negative  Implications  of  the  Law. 

1,  No  education  apart  from  suggestion      -         - 46 

a)  Life  cannot  be  controlled  from  without. 

b)  Teacher  can  only  w<?(/»/i«- life. 

2.  No  guidance  without  reaction .-         -     47 

a)   Only  active  things  can  be  guided. 

h)    No  "suggestion"  without  reaction. 

VII.  Pedagogical  Conclusions. 

1.  Education  is  an  affirmative  process        -         - 49 

a)   Its  aim  is  affirmative. 

b')    Its  means  are  affirmative. 

c)  Its  methods  are  affirmative. 

2.  Education  is  a  personal  matter      -         - 5° 

a)  Attitude  of  the  teacher  toward  his  pupil. 

b)  Pedagogy  an  ethical  science. 

c)  Individual  character  of  teaching. 

d)  The  teacher  a  fellow  student. 

3.  Education  seeks  to  form  character         -         - 52 

a)  There  is  one  unified  aim. 

b)  The  aim  is  an  ideal  one. 

c)  Education  aims  at  present  character. 

-     54 
Bibliography  ------- 


SUGGESTION   IN  EDUCATION. 


THE    PROBLEM    STATED. 

The  following  study  deals  with  a  perfectly  definite  problem.  It  is 
the  purpose  to  state  explicitly  a  single  law  of  pedagogy,  to  discuss  its 
validity  as  a  scientific  proposition,  and  to  show  its  significance  in  the 
whole  of  educational  theory.  It  is  a  work  of  formulating  and 
expounding  rather  than  of  establishing  through  scientific  research. 
The  facts  employed  as  data  in  the  discussion  are,  in  the  main,  common 
property — an  inheritance  from  centuries  of  thought  upon  educational 
aims  and  practices.  While  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  verify  them  by 
extended  observation  and  experiment,  the  writer  feels  that  his  experi- 
ence of  more  than  a  score  of  years  in  the  class-room  gives  some  war- 
rant for  their  acceptance.  Until  experimental  psychology  advances 
beyond  its  present  stage  of  a  too  exclusive  investigation  of  sense-phe- 
nomena and  deals  with  the  facts  of  rational  life  in  general,  and  until 
the  future  pedagogical  laboratory  makes  possible  a  like  critical  study 
of  educational  phenomena,  we  must  content  ourselves  to  deal  tenta- 
tively with  the  facts  found  in  common  consciousness  in  such  a  manner 
as  seems  most  productive  for  the  ends  sought.  Such  a  study  as  is 
here  presented,  will  not,  however,  prove  unproductive  for  the  purposes 
of  practical  pedagogy,  and  it  is  certainly  not  without  its  more  strictly 
scientific  value.  It  presents  and  explains  a  clearlv  defined  working 
hypothesis  for  guidance  in  subsequent  research,  thus  pre-empting  a 
field  for  future  exploration.  To  gather  and  evaluate  by  true  scientific 
method  the  data  necessary  to  establish  or  confute  this  law  would  be  a 
decisive  step  toward  giving  pedagogy  a  right  to  a  place  among  the 
modern  sciences.  But  such  a  consecrated  work  demands  an  equip- 
ment of  resources  and  an  opportunity  for  study  which  the  writer 
cannot  at  present  command  ;  consequently  he  contents  himself  with 
merely  delimiting  the  field. 

While  dealing  with  but  a  single  law  of  the  science  of  education, 
there  is  a  degree  of  completeness  in  the  discussion,  in  that  it  views 
the  whole  field  of  educational  thought  from  a  definite  standpoint. 
It  is,  in  fact,  a  study  of  educational  aims,  means,  and  processes  in 
their  relation  to  one  dominating  principle.     All  the  materials  of  edu- 

9 


I  o  SUGGESTION  IN  ED  UCA  TION 

cational  science  are  thus  organized  about  a  central  conception,  and 
all  educational  theory  is  developed  from  one  germinant  idea.  There 
are  evidently  other  laws  of  co-ordinate  rank  which  could  be  made  the 
centers  of  similar  studies,  but  with  these  we  are  not  at  present  con- 
cerned. The  cosmic  process  of  formulating  such  laws  and  organizing 
them  into  a  consistent  whole  is  truly  the  first  stage  of  differentiating 
and  defining  the  science  of  education.  But  while  we  may  not  at  present 
undertake  the  organization  of  such  a  framework  for  our  science,  we 
must  preface  our  discussion  of  the  chosen  law  by  a  general  characteri- 
zation of  the  nature  of  pedagogy,  its  subject-matter  and  its  methods. 

Pedagogy  is  the  science  of  education. — The  common  denial  that 
there  is  a  science  of  education,  either  in  esse  or  in  posse,  is  due  chiefly 
to  three  facts :  a  vagueness  of  conception  regarding  what  constitutes  a 
science,  a  lack  of  precise  definition  of  education,  and  ignorance  of 
what  has  already  been  accomplished  in  the  formulation  of  funda- 
mental educational  principles.  Our  present  purpose  will  not  permit 
the  examination  in  detail  of  these  three  sources  of  error ;  but  the 
lines  along  which  such  a  vindication  of  the  claims  of  pedagogy  should 
proceed  may  be  indicated  here. 

A  science  is  an  organically  related  body  of  thought  originating  in  a 
specialization  of  interests.  In  the  earlier  stages  of  life,  both  of  the  race 
and  of  the  individual,  experiences  come  and  go  in  their  complexity 
without  being  evaluated  from  definite  view-points,  each  experience 
being  for  the  time  the  whole  of  life  viewed  in  its  unbroken  entirety. 
Later  certain  experiences  are  objectified,  correlated,  and  unified  into  a 
class,  viewed  as  having  a  common  origin  in  a  particular  mode  of  contact 
with  the  environment ;  and  thus  centers  of  special  interest  are  estab- 
lished, and  particular  points  of  view  become  habitual.  Through 
analysis  and  classification  experiences  are  broken  up  and  the  elements 
segregated  into  groups,  and  by  constructive  thinking  these  groups  are 
organized  into  phases  of  life.  These  phases  of  life  through  elabora- 
tion and  systematization  of  their  characteristic  features  become 
sciences.  Thus  any  mode  or  "way  of  looking  at  things"  may  become 
a  science,  if  the  facts  are  so  differentiated  and  organized  as  to  consti- 
tute a  distinct  phase  of  experience.  Sciences  are  styles  of  thought, 
fashions  in  experiencing  that  are  born,  run  their  courses,  and  die, 
giving  place  to  new  sciences.  The  facts  in  common  consciousness  are 
seen  in  endless  variety  of  kaleidoscopic  combinations  as  age  succeeds 
age,  and  the  sciences  of  one  generation  become  old-fashioned  and 
"false"  to  the  succeeding  generations.     Nevertheless  each  science  has 


SUGGESTION  IN  ED  UCA  TION  1 1 

during  its  reign  its  own  field,  within  which  it  is  exclusive  and  beyond 
which  it  cannot  be  extended.  The  mutability  of  the  organic  form  of 
a  science  does  not  necessarily  render  its  knowledge-basis  vague  or  its 
boundaries  indefinite.  It  is  essentially  one  way  of  looking  at  the 
facts,  and  such  singleness  of  conception  will  not  admit  of  uncertainty 
as  to  subject-matter.  Many  of  the  facts  and  principles  of  one  science 
may  by  slight  conversion  be  turned  to  useful  account  in  building  up 
another  science.  It  is  merely  a  question  of  reconstructing  the 
elementary  materials  about  a  new  center  of  interest;  the  view-point  is 
changed,  and  the  truths  are  seen  in  new  relations  and  altered  per- 
spective. One  science  in  this  way  may  become  a  propaedeutic  to 
another,  contributing  its  facts  as  data  for  new  generalizations.  Its 
principles  are  transplanted  into  the  new  field  and  subordinated  to  a 
new  cosmical  view.  It  is  in  this  way  that  the  facts  of  psychology  and 
ethics  become  facts  of  pedagogy.  Education,  properly  defined,  pre- 
sents a  characteristic  body  of  phenomena,  which  are  the  subject- 
matter  of  a  true  science. 

Education  is  the  conscious  direction  which  the  more  mature  person 
gives  to  the  growth  of  the  less  mature,  that  he  may  lead  him  into  a 
larger  enjoyment  of  the  blessings  of  the  physical  environment,  and  a 
fuller  participation  in  the  pleasures  and  duties  of  the  social  life.  The 
fundamental  idea  here  is  the  conscious  guidance  of  a  life-process.  It  is 
the  bringing  up  of  the  young  to  such  a  stage  of  life-functioning  as 
enables  them  to  participate  in  the  blessings  and  responsibilities  of  life, 
through  a  constructive  guidance  of  their  development.  Both  the 
social  and  the  individual  aspects  of  education  are  recognized  ;  it  is 
the  process  of  socializing  the  individual  through  maturing  him.  The 
individual  is  to  be  "elevated  into  the  race"  through  integrating  into 
his  life  experiences  originating  in  the  social  environment.  This  restric- 
tion of  the  term  to  what  is  commonly  called  "formal  education,"  as 
opposed  to  the  vague  conception  of  the  whole  process  of  development 
of  the  individual  during  the  period  of  youth  under  whatever  influ- 
ences, is  essential  to  any  clear  discussion  of  pedagogical  principles 
and  laws.  There  is  no  education  apart  from  teaching,  that  is,  apart  from 
"conscious  guidance"  of  life  toward  a  more  or  less  clearly  deter- 
mined end. 

It  is  neither  possible  nor  desirable  to  exhibit  here  what  has  already 
been  accomplished  by  educators  in  accumulating  materials  for  their 
science.  One  who  reads  with  discrimination  our  rapidly  increasing 
pedagogical   literature   cannot  fail  to  find   much  of  a  truly  scientific 


I  a  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCA  TION 

character.  To  segregate  these  discovered  principles  and  to  give  them 
organic  form  as  the  laws  of  a  science  is  a  work  of  the  highest  value, 
which  awaits  the  masterhand  of  some  educational  leader. 

As  to  matter  and  method  sciences  may  be  separated  into  two 
groups :  descriptive  and  normative.  The  descriptive  sciences  are 
explanatory,  dealing  with  that  which  is,  without  concern  for  what 
ought  to  be.  They  are  the  "fact  sciences"  of  the  physical  and  psychi- 
cal worlds,  in  which  man  simply  sees  and  interprets  the  objects  about 
him  unmoved  by  a  desire  to  modify  them  with  reference  to  subjective 
relations.  The  normative  sciences,  on  the  other  hand,  are  concerned 
with  subjective  attitudes  springing  out  of  a  sense  of  moral  obligation. 
They  deal  with  what  ought  to  be  and  are  fundamentally  concerned  with 
questions  of  duty.  They  are  the  "law  sciences"  of  the  social  world. 
The  descriptive  sciences  are  analytic  and  explanatory  in  their  methods, 
while  the  normative  are  constructive  and  directive;  the  former  deal 
with  facts,  and  the  latter  with  norms.  Psychology  is  a  descriptive 
science;  pedagogy,  a  normative  science.  The  laws  of  pedagogy  are 
formal  enunciations  of  principles  of  conduct  of  one  moral  personality 
toward  another  in  aiding  him  to  his  highest  development.  They 
should  not  be  confounded,  on  the  one  hand,  with  the  mere  laws  of 
mental  development  which  belong  to  psychology,  nor,  on  the  other, 
with  the  general  laws  of  conduct  in  social  life  which  belong  to  ethics. 
Their  characteristic  element  is  the  recognition  of  the  ethical  attitude 
of  the  teacher  toward  his  pupil. 

MENTAL    GROWTH. 

Growth  is  the  process  by  which  a  living  organism  builds  its  own 
structure  through  the  functioning  of  its  organs.  It  involves  both  the 
acquisition  of  material  and  the  organization  of  structure.  While  growth, 
at  least  in  the  earlier  stages  of  the  life  of  the  organism,  includes  enlarge- 
ment, mere  enlargement  without  a  simultaneous  organic  development  is 
not  growth.  The  rolling  snowball  increases  in  volume,  but  it  does  not 
"grow;"  nor  can  the  forming  crystal  be  said  to  grow  in  the  biological 
sense  in  which  we  are  here  using  the  word.  The  living  tree  grows  by 
appropriating  material  from  its  environment  and  assimilating  it  into  its 
own  organized  substance,  employing  in  the  process  its  organs  —  roots, 
leaves,  etc. —  in  their  normal  functioning.  In  the  lowest  forms  of  ani- 
mal and  plant  life  the  vital  movement  is  merely  a  simplification  of  this 
process,  and  in  the  most  perfect  form  of  the  human  organism  the 
growth  is  still  through   the   normal   action  of  the   living  mechanism ; 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  13 

hence  it  may  be  broadly  stated  that  all  growth,  in  the  biological  sense, 
is  through  the  functioning  of  the  organism. 

The  growth  of  the  human  mind  is  analogous  to  the  growth  of  the 
tree,  making  due  allowance  for  the  non-spatial  character  of  the  mind. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  raise  here  the  question  of  the  existence  of  a  sub- 
stantial mental  entity,  hypostatized  as  a  substratum  for  the  mental  phe- 
nomena; it  is  enough  to  know  that  7nati's  mental  life  is  a  self-directed 
growth.  The  individual  human  personality  develops  naturally  to 
perfection  of  structure  and  functioning  through  self-directed  experien- 
cing. This  does  not  mean  that  the  mind  grows  apart  from  the  body  in 
which  it  manifests  itself;  it  is  the  man  that  grows,  body  and  soul  in 
their  vital  union.  We  are,  however,  concerned  at  present  with  the 
mental  aspect  of  the  man  in  his  life-movement,  /.  e.,  with  the  growth 
of  the  mind.  This  growth,  like  that  of  the  vegetable  organism,  is  not 
a  mere  enlargement  through  accretion  and  molding  by  environment  ; 
it  is  a  vital  process,  consciously  directed  by  the  man  himself.  What- 
ever life  the  man  has  —  all  that  he  lives  is  thus  a  matter  of  self-directed 
development.  Each  day's  life  is  built  upon  that  which  is  past,  and  is 
in  turn  the  foundation  and  the  condition  of  that  which  is  to  come. 
Nothing  belongs  to  the  life  except  that  which  it  grows  into  itself,  and 
all  that  it  does  grow  into  itself  is  permanently  a  part  of  it. 

In  this  mental  growth  it  is  important  to  distinguish  with  jirecision 
the  two  phases,  of  increase  in  "mental  volume"  and  reorganization  of 
"mental  structure."  They  are  not  two  successive  stages,  but  two 
aspects  of  the  same  process;  the  acquisition  of  material  and  the  con- 
structive employment  of  it  are  but  the  life  movement  seen  from  differ- 
ent standpoints.  When  we  speak  of  "increase  in  mental  volume,"  we 
need  to  guard  ourselves  against  the  implication  of  the  space  concep- 
tion involved  in  the  term  "volume,"  which  we  borrow  from  the 
physicists.  A  "larger  life"  does  not,  of  course,  mean  one  of  greater 
magnitude,  but  merely  one  of  greater  experience  content.  To 
"increase  the  mental  volume"  is  to  add  to  the  knowledge-posses- 
sions, to  swell  the  current  of  the  life-movement  by  wider  and  fuller 
experiences.  Similarly  by  the  "organization  of  mental  structure"  is 
not  meant  the  distribution  of  the  "mental  substance"  into  particular 
organs,  or  "  faculties,"  but  the  securing  of  such  integrity  of  the  mental 
life  as  will  give  effectiveness  and  facility  to  functioning.  Clearly 
determined  expression  is  both  the  means  and  the  result  of  this  organ- 
ization of  life.  It  is  only  the  effort  to  produce  that  can  give  the 
ability  to  produce  ;  and  one  learns  to  live  artistically  by  living  artisti- 


1 4  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCA  TION 

cally.  In  the  effort  to  know  one  lives  more;  in  the  effort  to  do  he 
lives  better.  But  these  cannot  be  separated;  one  knows  truly  only  in 
doing,  and  does  only  in  knowing. 

The  materials  for  man's  growth  are  found  in  his  physical  and  social 
environment.  All  growth  is  by  incorporating  into  the  structure  of  the 
organism  materials  taken  from  the  environment.  Plants  feed  upon  that 
which  they  find  in  the  soil  and  air;  and  man  nourishes  his  life  from 
his  environment.  Man  has  two  environments,  or  rather  his  environ- 
ment is  double  in  its  character.  From  the  physical  universe  about  him  he 
appropriates  the  materials  of  his  bodily  structure;  and  this  same  physi- 
cal universe  impinging  upon  his  nervous  mechanism  stimulates  him  into 
conscious  life-activities  —  "rubs  him  into  conscious  life."  But  his 
experiencing  of  the  environment,  his  interpretation  of  its  irritating 
contact,  is  mediated  by  his  social  environment.  He  sees  the  "green- 
ness" of  the  grass  through  the  eyes  of  his  race-fellows.  His  life  is 
saturated  with  the  content  of  common  consciousness,  the  accumulated 
race-experiences,  so  that  he  cannot  reach  the  physical  world  except 
through  the  medium  of  the  social  atmosphere  in  which  he  lives.  In 
addition  to  mediating  the  physical  environment  for  man,  this  social 
atmosphere  is  itself  a  true  environment.  Man  acknowledges  his 
fellows  as  subjects  with  whom  he  agrees  or  disagrees,  to  whom  he 
takes  attitudes.  His  relations  to  them  nourish  and  condition  his  indi- 
vidual life.  Just  as  in  his  experiences  with  his  physical  environment 
he  builds  up  certain  concepts,  or  "types"  of  existence,  that  are  to  him 
in  their  recurrence  in  thought  a  sort  of  sense-impression  stimulating 
to  life,  so  in  the  recognized  "characters"  of  his  fellows  and  in  the 
social  institutions  as  they  exist  in  common  consciousness,  he  finds 
stimulation  and  materials  for  his  own  development.  Thus  in  his 
experiences  with  nature  and  in  his  intercourse  with  his  fellow  men  the 
individual  man  finds  the  materials  of  his  normal  growth.  We  desig- 
nate as  "environment"  the  general  storehouse  of  life's  supplies;  but 
environment  is  only  so  much  of  "circumstances"  as  is  related  actively 
to  the  life  of  the  individual ;  it  is  circumstances  as  they  are  grasped 
by  the  individual  and  made  a  part  of  his  own  structure.  What  we  call 
"knowledge,"  the  accumulated  race-experiences  that  we  embody  in 
books,  becomes  material  for  the  growth  of  the  individual  only  as  he 
appropriates  it.  He  must  psychologize  it  into  his  very  soul-substance 
through  true  apperception.  The  "arithmetic"  of  the  school  text-book 
becomes  John's  arithmetic  by  being  incorporated  into  John's  life  in 
normal  growth. 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  i  5 

GUIDING    THE    MENTAL    LIFE    OF    ANOTHER. 

That  one  person  may  intentionally  guide  and  stimulate  the  growth 
of  another  is  a  fundamental  postulate  in  all  educational  science.  It  is 
a  common  assumption  in  all  teaching,  and  is  not  likely  to  be  called  in 
question  by  the  practical  teacher  or  the  more  philosophical  expounder 
of  pedagogical  principles.  It  is,  however,  important  to  know  its  rela- 
tions to  the  principle  set  forth  in  the  preceding  section,  namely,  that 
each  person's  life  is  a  self-directed  growth.  It  is  an  essential  condition 
of  rational  life  that  it  builds  itself  out  of  the  available  materials  and 
under  the  limitations  of  its  environment.  To  take  from  a  person,  even 
for  the  most  benevolent  motives,  this  right  of  self-making  would,  were 
it  possible  to  do  so,  be  destructive  of  all  moral  responsibility,  would 
degrade  iho.  person  into  the  thing.  Fortunately  it  is  psychologically 
impossible  to  rob  man  wholly  of  this  power,  though  the  supply  of  life- 
materials  may  be  so  limited  and  the  opportunities  for  constructive 
expression  may  be  so  controlled  as  to  make  the  life  a  poor,  dwarfed, 
sickly  shadow  of  what  it  would  be  under  normal  conditions.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  possible  to  so  enrich  the  environment  and  to  so 
accelerate  the  movement  as  to  make  the  life  of  another  much  more 
than  it  would  be  unguided.  Upon  this  possibility  of  aiding  the  life- 
movement  of  another  depends  the  whole  theory  of  education.  The 
teacher  claims  the  power  and  the  right  to  co-operate  in  determining 
the  development  of  his  pupil  toward  some  ideal  end,  which  he  as  a 
more  mature  student  of  life's  purposes  and  processes  more  or  less 
clearly  perceives;  and  pedagogy  has  for  its  province  the  principles  and 
laws  of  this  intentional  influencing  of  one  person  by  another. 

The  teacher  has  chiefly  two  means  of  influencing  the  life-movement 
of  his  pupil:  he  may  so  order  the  environment  as  to  secure  a  larger 
appropriation  of  such  materials  as  contribute  to  development  in  a  cer- 
tain direction  ;  or  he  may  suggest  images  about  which  the  successive 
experiences  may  be  developed,  thus  shaping  by  gentlest  touch  the 
progressive  building.  These  two  are  not  so  easily  distinguished  as 
might  appear  at  the  first  glance ;  they  are  really  fundamentally  the 
same,  differing  only  as  to  whether  our  attention  is  directed  to  the 
material  used  or  the  use  that  is  made  of  it.  We  may  for  the  present 
drop  from  view  the  first  aspect,  returning  to  it  in  a  later  part  of  the 
discussion.  The  nature  of  the  second  means  is  comprehensively 
presented  in  the  following  statement :  Images  may  be  suggested  about 
which  the  life-experiences  may  be  organized,  and  even  the  larger  ideals 
of  the  whole  life -movement  may  be  biased  by  the  intentional  influence  of 


1 6  SUGGESTION  IN  ED UCA  TION 

the  more  mature  mind.  We  must  now  devote  ourselves  to  a  somewhat 
exhaustive  study  of  this  proposition,  seeking  to  determine  first  its 
psychological  validity  and  then  its  pedagogical  significance. 

NATURE    OF    SUGGESTION    AND    REACTION. 

The  word  "suggest"  has,  in  both  philosophy  and  in  common 
speech,  two  pretty  clearly  distinguished  meanings :  one  idea  may  sug- 
gest another,  and  one  person  may  suggest  an  idea  to  another  person. 
The  first  is  the  common  use  in  the  "  association  psychology;  "  it  denotes 
the  operation  by  which  one  idea  calls  up  another  through  some  form 
of  association  with  it.  Doubtless  there  is  much  justification  for  the 
claim  that  "all  mental  life  falls  under  the  principle  of  suggestion," 
and  that  "  the  existence  of  an  idea  in  consciousness  at  a  particular 
time  is  due  to  the  fact  that  such  another  idea  has  preceded  it  in  con- 
sciousness;" but  we  need  not  on  this  account  look  upon  life  as  a  mere 
chain  of  linked  ideas.  It  is  the  whole  life-current  that  moves  on;  or, 
as  Ladd  states  it  in  his  Descriptive  and  Explanatory  Psychology,  p.  264, 
"  It  is  our  total  states  or  fields  of  consciousness  which  follow  each 
other  in  the  succession  of  time."  It  is  enough  for  our  present  pur- 
poses to  recognize  that  there  is  a  continuity  of  experience  without 
attempting  to  trace  the  connections  between  its  successive  phases.  We 
must  leave  to  the  psychologist  the  formulation  and  defense  of  his 
"laws  of  association,"  with  the  humble  petition  that  we  may  be  spared 
from  any  attempt  to  deal  in  pedagogy  with  discrete  "psychic  atoms" 
joined  by  some  form  of  hypothetical  linkages  "  in  the  mind  "  or  "  in  the 
brain."  We  cannot  forbear,  however,  to  quote  Professor  James 
against  his  brethren  :  "Asociation,  so  far  as  the  word  stands  for  an 
effect,  is  between  things  thought  of — it  is  things,  not  ideas,  which  are 
associated  in  the  mind.  We  ought  to  talk  of  the  association  of  objects, 
not  of  the  association  of  ideas.  And  so  far  as  association  stands  for  a 
cause,  it  is  httvittn  processes  in  the  brain  —  it  is  these  which,  by  being 
associated  in  certain  ways,  determine  what  successive  objects  shall  be 
thought."' 

To  suggest,  in  the  second  meaning  of  the  term,  is  to  impart 
an  idea  unobtrusively  to  another.  It  is  to  excite  an  idea  in  the 
mind  of  another,  to  start  an  experience  by  indirect  prompting,  to 
introduce  an  image  into  the  mind  in  such  a  manner  as  to  cause  a 
reconstruction  of  the  life-materials  about  it  as  a  determining  center. 
Baldwin  characterizes  it  as  "the   abrupt   entrance   from    without  into 

'  Principles  of  Psychology,  Vol.  1,  p.  554. 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  I  7 

consciousness  of  an  idea  or  image  which  becomes  a  part  of  the  stream 
of  thought  and  tends  to  produce  the  muscular  and  volitional  effects 
which  ordinarily  follow  upon  its  presence.'"  The  word  "abrupt  "  in 
this  statement  is  liable  to  be  misunderstood.  The  idea  does  not, 
even  in  the  hypnotic  state,  break  into  the  mind  ;  there  is  always  a  wel- 
coming, however  coy  and  resisting  the  receiving  mind  may  be.  It  is 
a  life-movement  \.\idX  is  influenced,  and  it  cannot  passively  suffer  the 
introduction  into  it  of  something  wholly  foreign  to  it.  "  Suggestion 
is  an  operation  producing  a  given  effect  on  a  subject  by  acting  on  his 
intelligence.  Every  suggestion  essentially  consists  in  acting  on  a  per- 
son by  means  of  an  idea ;  every  effect  suggested  is  the  result  of  a  phe- 
nomenon of  ideation."'  This  "ideation"  is  the  essential  fact  of  the 
suggestion  as  seen  from  the  side  of  the  influenced  life.  It  is  the  reac- 
tion of  the  receiving  mind.  When  we  speak  of  the  "  reaction  to  a 
suggestion  "  we  do  not,  however,  mean  adverse  action,  as  we  do  in 
physics,  but  the  active  reception  of  the  suggestion  as  a  factor  in  the 
life-movement.  To  react  in  this  sense  is  to  accept  and  to  utilize  con- 
structively in  a  normal  process  of  experiencing  that  which  is  placed 
before  the  mind.  In  his  Outlines  of  Psychology  Vxai^^'iox '\\\.c\\<zx\t.x, 
speaking  of  the  experimental  process  of  applying  sensory  stimuli  to 
another  person  and  noting  his  response  to  them,  says  :  "A  reaction  is 
an  artificial  action."  The  term  "artificial"  used  here  must  be  care- 
fully guarded.  The  action  is  a  perfectly  natural  one  so  far  as  its  pro- 
cedure is  concerned  ;  it  is  only  artificial  in  that  it  originates  in  the 
conscious  purpose  of  another,  that  is  another  furnishes  the  stimulus  to 
an  experience  that  otherwise  would  not  have  come  naturally  into  the 
life-current.  The  suggestion  comes  as  a  hint  or  insinuation  to  a  self- 
determining  movement,  which  may  accept  it  or  reject  it  with  more  or 
less  vigor  according  to  the  integrity  of  the  whole  movement.  This  is 
as  true  for  the  hypnotic  subject  as  it  is  for  the  person  in  the  normal 
state.  Further,  "  suggestion "  and  "  reaction "  are  not  successive 
stages  in  the  progress  of  the  influencing  of  one  life  by  another  ;  they 
are  two  aspects  of  the  same  movement.  There  can  be  no  suggestion 
without  reaction.  The  two  minds  participate  in  a  common  process,  the 
one  as  suggester  and  the  other  as  reacter.  The  one  mind  communi- 
cates to  the  other  from  its  own  life-movement,  and  the  other  actively 
receives  the  communication  into  its  own  vital  current.  It  is  merely 
the  impinging  of  one  life  upon  another,  gently  yet  effectively  modify- 
ing its  course.    For  the  purposes  of  the   present  discussion   emphasis 

I  Handbook  of  Psychology,  Vol.  II,  p.  297.        »  Binet  and  F6r£,  Animal  Magnttitm,  p.  173. 


1 8  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION 

must  be  laid  upon  the  ufwbtrusiveness  of  this  influencing.  The  idea 
is  not  thrust  before  the  mind  as  sonaething  wholly  foreign  to  it,  inter- 
rupting forcibly  its  current  of  experiencing  with  the  demand  for  the 
taking  up  of  a  new  element.  The  "communicated  image"  finds  its 
place  in  the  life  because  of  a  feeling  of  kinship  of  the  present  content 
for  the  factor.  The  new  idea  is  created  in  the  mind  of  the  receiver 
under  the  most  gentle  touch  of  the  influencing  mind,  and  the  experi- 
ence is  determined  in  volume  and  form  by  the  "  mere  suggestion  "  of 
what  it  may  become. 

There  are  two  clearly  distinguished  schools  of  hypnotic  theory, 
commonly  known  as  the  "  Paris  School  "  and  the  "  Nancy  School." 
According  to  the  first,  hypnotism  is  a  peculiar  pathological  state  into 
which  certain  predisposed  people  may  be  brought,  and  in  which  their 
actions  may  be  automatically  controlled  by  another  person  without 
their  own  consciousness  or  volition.  In  the  cataleptic  trance  the  body 
becomes  merely  an  ingenious  machine  to  be  played  upon  by  the 
hypnotizer.  According  to  the  second  theory,  hypnotism  is  an  abnor- 
mal condition  of  the  mental  life  in  which  images  work  themselves  out 
more  readily  into  expression,  and  in  which  the  hypnotized  person  con- 
trols his  own  life  under  the  suggestions  of  the  hypnotizer.  The  first 
has  been  called  the  "  neurosis  theory,"  and  the  second  the  "  sugges- 
tion theory."  In  the  one,  personal  life  is  for  the  time  wholly  destroyed  ; 
in  the  other,  it  is  only  warped  and  distorted.  Without  attempting  to 
enter  into  this  controversy,  it  need  only  be  said,  as  is  probably  suf- 
ficiently evident  from  the  context,  that  the  claims  of  the  Nancy  people, 
led  by  Bernheim,  are  accepted  in  the  present  essay,  Bernheim  char- 
acterizes the  process  of  hypnotism  as  "  the  induction  of  a  peculiar 
psychical  condition  which  increases  the  susceptibility  to  suggestion;" 
also  he  says  :  "It  is  suggestion  that  rules  hypnotism."  Wundt'  says  : 
"  Die  hauptsachlichste  Entstehungsursache  der  Hypnose  ist  d\t.  Sugges- 
tion, d.  h.  die  Mittheilung  einer  gefuhlsstarken  Vorstellung."  Profes- 
sor Titchener  tersely  says  :  "All  the  phenomena  of  hypnosis  can  be 
summed  up  in  the  single  word  suggestion.  The  operator  suggests  to 
the  subject  what  he  is  to  see  and  do ;  the  subject  suggests  to  himself 
that  he  shall  enter  the  hypnotic  state."'  Hypnotic  suggestion  is  only 
a  simplified  and  intensified  form  of  the  influence  which  one  person 
exerts  over  another  in  the  normal  state.  In  this  view  the  trance-state 
itself  is  the  effect  of  suggestion.  Bernheim,  in  Suggtstive  Therapeutics, 
p.    179,   says:  "Hypnotism   does   not  really  create  a   new  condition  ; 

«  Grundriss  der  Psychologies  p.  321.  ^Primer  0/ Psychology,  p.  375. 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  19 


K 


there  is  nothing  in  induced  sleep  which  may  not  occur  in  the  waking 
condition,  in  a  rudimentary  degree  in  many  cases,  but  in  some  to  an 
equal  extent."  Again  on  page  190  he  says:  "The  induced  sleep  does 
not  depend  upon  the  hypnotizer,  but  upon  the  subject  ;  it  is  his  own 
faith  which  puts  him  to  sleep.  No  one  can  be  hypnotized  against  his 
will,  if  he  resists  the  command.  Baldwin  in  the  Nation,  August  11, 
1892,  writes:  "According  to  the  Nancy  view,  there  is  nothing  abnor- 
mal about  hypnotic  sleep.  It  is  normal  sleep  artificially  produced,  and 
the  method  of  producing  sleep  artificially  —  suggestion — is  nothing 
more  than  a  skilful  and  professional  use  of  the  hitherto  unrecognized 
fact  that  our  normal  life  is  full  of  responses  suggested  to  us  by  our 
surroundings.  Of  our  usual  surroundings,  persons  are  the  most 
important  elements;  in  other  words,  our  social  environment,  our  living 
milieu,  gives  constant  tone  and  support  to  our  lives  and  aids  our  devel- 
opment." Professor  James  judiciously  sums  up  the  argument  for  this 
position  in  his  Principles  of  Psychology,  Vol.  II,  p.  601,  as  follows: 
"  The  suggestion  theory  may  therefore  be  approved  as  correct,  provided  7ve 
grant  the  trance-state  as  its  prerequisite.  The  three  states  of  Charcot, 
the  strange  reflexes  of  Heidenhain,  and  all  other  bodily  phenomena 
which  have  been  called  direct  consequences  of  the  trance-state  itself, 
are  not  such.  They  are  products  of  suggestion,  the  trance-state  having 
no  particular  outward  symptoms  of  its  own  ;  but  without  the  trance- 
state  there,  those  particular  suggestions  could  never  have  been  suc- 
cessfully made." 

The  two  important  facts  in  this  view  of  hypnotism  are  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  hypnotized  person  and  the  self-determination  of  his 
actions.  Upon  the  first  point  Bernheim '  says :  "  The  impressions 
produced  by  artificial  or  induced  sleep  are  always  conscious  at  the 
time  they  are  produced."     With  even  greater  definiteness    Moll'  says  : 

"There  is  no  suggestion   without  consciousness A   suggestion 

without  consciousness  is  to  me  inconceivable."  The  same  conception 
is  also  implied  in  the  definition  of  suggestion  in  hypnotism  by  Sidis  : ' 
'Suggestion  is  the  intrusion  into  the  mind  of  an  idea  ;  met  with  more 
or  less  opposition  by  the  person  ;  accepted  uncritically  at  last ;  and 
realized  unreflectively,  almost  automatically."  Of  similar  tenor  is 
Fouill^e's  statement*  that  "  What  is  called  hypnotic  suggestion  is 
nothing  but  the  artificial  selection  of  one  idea  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
others,  so  that   it  passes  into  action."     To   ascribe   to   the  hypnotic 

1  Suggestive  Therapeutics,  p.  157.         2  Hypnotism,  p.  267.         3  PsychoUgy  of  Suggestion,  p.  15. 
^  Education  from  a  National  Standpoint,  Greenstreet's  translation,  p.  \i. 


20  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION 

subject  personality,  however  modified  and  distorted,  is  to  grant  that 
all  his  mental  processes  are  conscious  to  that  personality.  Conscious- 
ness, as  the  mind's  awareness  of  its  own  states,  is  the  one  abiding 
characteristic  of  all  mental  life.  It  is  not  necessary  here  to  deal  with 
the  theory  of  "  unconscious  mind,"  or  of  varying  "  degrees  of  con- 
sciousness." The  mind  that  reacts  upon  a  suggestion,  whether  in  a  nor- 
mal or  an  abnormal  state,  is  necessarily  conscious  of  its  own  processes. 

The  hypnotized  subject  reacts  upon  the  suggestions  of  his  hypno- 
tizer,  that  is,  all  of  his  acts  are  self-determined,  however  much  his  nor- 
mal mental  life  may  be  abridged  and  constrained.  His  life  shorn  of 
its  full  normal  play  of  ideas  is  none  the  less  his  life,  concerning  itself 
with  its  own  materials  and  developing  its  own  experiences.  The  sug- 
gestion and  reaction  are  essentially  the  same  as  in  the  normal  state, 
differing  only  in  the  unbalanced  state  of  the  subject.  "  Physiological 
and  neuropathic  suggestion  is  nothing  but  the  exaggeration  of  facts 
which  occur  in  the  normal  state."'  Self-directed  personal  life  still 
exists,  though  narrowed  in  its  field  and  biased  in  its  movement.  In 
this  fragment  of  normal  personality  there  are  still  reflection,  judgment, 
volition  —  operating  in  the  whole  field  of  the  abridged  and  distorted 
life.  This  is  clearly  seen  in  the  refusal  of  a  hypnotic  subject,  who  has 
readily  yielded  himself  to  suggestive  guidance  in  numberless  minor 
acts,  to  perform  under  the  most  strenuous  demand  an  immoral  or 
criminal  act  at  total  variance  with  the  integrity  of  his  character.  The 
man  is  still  there,  and  "pulls  himself  together"  for  a  successful 
struggle  against  a  wrong  to  himself.  May  we  not  conclude  that  action 
under  hypnotic  suggestion  is  as  truly  conscious  and  voluntary  as  that  of 
normal  life  ? 

Much  that  has  been  said  of  suggestion  in  abnormal  life  —  in  the 
hypnotic  state — applies  equally  to  suggestion  in  normal  life.  Here, 
as  in  the  former  case,  to  suggest  an  idea  to  another  is  to  excite  in  him 
a  notion  upon  which  he  proceeds  to  build  up  an  experience.  The 
chief  difference,  probably  the  only  one,  is  that  in  the  normal  life  the 
suggested  image  comes  into  the  midst  of  an  active  play  of  a  multitude 
of  mental  systems,  each  ready  to  claim  the  field  of  consciousness  and 
to  determine  an  experience.  It  must  win  its  way  to  the  life-center, 
establish  its  right  to  rule  as  the  dominant  factor  in  the  life-movement 
in  open,  free  competition  with  numberless  other  possible  images. 
Stout  finds  the  "  suggestibility  "  of  the  hypnotic  subject,  or  of  the 
mentally  weak  in  general,  to  consist  essentially   in  the  absence  of  the 

iGuYAU,  tlducatioH  ei  hiriditi,  p.  8, 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCA  TION  2  I 

normal  conflict  of  apperceptive  systems  for  dominance.  The  possible 
mental  field  is  narrowed  by  inhibition  to  one  system,  which  is  the 
whole  of  life,  even  to  monomania.  "A  healthy  condition  of  mind  is 
characterized  by  a  general  excitability  of  all  the  mental  systems  com- 
posing the  empirical  Ego,  which  enables  them  to  co-operate,  com- 
pete, and  conflict,  with  a  comparative  strength  simultaneously 
determined  by  conditions  both  external  and  internal  to  the  particular 
systems.'"  Coming  into  such  a  complex  of  psychic  life,  the  suggested 
image  must  so  touch  that  life  as  to  be  welcomed  as  its  organic  center 
in  a  true  psychosis.  It  must  by  its  intrinsic  interest  focus  the  whole 
movement  in  itself.  "The  first  condition  of  normal  suggestion  is 
fixation  of  attention.'"'  Starting  with  the  centering  of  the  life  about 
the  suggested  image  in  "  attention,"  the  experience  moves  on  to  a 
motor  discharge  in  some  form  of  expression.  Touched  from  without 
by  a  fact  which  the  life  recognizes  as  belonging  to  itself,  it  reacts  by 
welcoming  that  fact  as  a  temporary  sovereign  to  whose  feet  it  brings 
all  its  treasures. 

No  better  examples  of  the  nature  and  process  of  mental  suggestion 
can  be  found  than  in  a  social  conversation  between  two  friends  upon 
the  ordinary  concerns  of  life.  In  such  a  conversation  each  remark  is 
in  its  turn  the  completion  of  an  experience  of  the  speaker  and  the 
occasion  of  an  experience  for  the  hearer.  The  two  lines  of  life  are 
approximately  parallel,  bending  now  this  way,  now  that  under  the 
influence  of  their  reciprocal  interaction.  Since  their  apperceptive 
systems  are  different,  no  two  experiences  can  be  identical  ;  yet  as  each 
life  impinges  upon  the  other,  it  modifies  its  course  by  suf;gfstifi^^  to  it 
an  image  center.  While  the  thoughts  of  the  two  persons  have  in  gen- 
eral a  common  trend,  each  life  moves  forward  in  a  continuous  recon- 
structing of  its  own  experience  about  constantly  changing  images. 
Each  by  expressing  his  own  experience  contributes  to  the  life  of  the 
other  in  the  only  way  in  which  one  life  can  affect  another,  /.  e.,  by 
suggestion. 

Imitation  has  become  a  word  to  conjure  with  in  dealing  with  the 
early  development  of  the  child  under  the  influence  of  his  associates. 
Psychologists  and  sociologists  have  in  the  past  decade  written  much 
about  "imitation  in  the  child  and  in  the  race,"  the  "imitative  func- 
tion," the  "laws  of  imitation,"  the  "imitative  faculty,"  the  "imitative 
impulse,"  etc.;  and  much  that  has  been  written  is  very  vague,  lacking 
in  true  psychological  definition.     The  term  is  used  with  all  shades  of 

^Analytical  Psychology,  Vol.  II,  p.  156.         2S1DIS,  Psychology  of  Suggtstion,  p.  45. 


2  2  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCA  T20N 

meaning,  from  "mechanical  repetition  of  the  actions  of  another  per- 
son "  up  to  the  great  creative  work  of  the  true  artist.  It  will  doubtless 
help  to  clear  up  some  of  this  indefiniteness  if  we  return,  as  we  so  often 
do  in  our  wanderings  in  philosophic  thinking,  to  Aristotle.  In  the 
well-known  definition  of  tragedy  the  major  genus  is  "  imitation,"  used 
in  a  sense  that  is  clearly  defined  in  the  context.  Imitation  for  Aristotle 
is  not  a  mere  reflection  of  a  product ;  it  is  a  genuine  creative  act,  not 
the  mirroring  of  the  product  of  the  creative  act  of  another.  As  an 
artist  his  poet  is  employed  in  "imitating  things  as  they  ought  to  be." 
In  spite  of  all  that  has  been  said  of  late  about  "organic  imitation" 
apart  from  consciousness,  it  is  by  no  means  established  that  there  is 
any  such  thing  as  mere  reflex  action  in  the  psychic  world.  One  reads 
Professor  Baldwin's  very  interesting  and  instructive  discussion  of 
"circular  activity"  with  a  constantly  growing  query  as  to  whether  he 
might  not  have  said  without  qualification,  on  page  266  of  the  first  volume 
of  Mental  Development,  that  "imitation  is  an  instance  of  suggestive 
reaction,^^  implying  in  his  predicate  term  a  conscious  response  to  an 
external  stimulus.  Is  it  not  a  rather  forced  classification  of  mental 
phenomena  that  assigns  "volition  to  the  man,"  "suggestion  to  the 
infant,"  "reflex  action  to  the  mocking-bird,"  and  "instinct  to  the 
beaver?"  Is  it  not  mind  that  acts  in  each  case,  in  essentially  the  same 
manner?  Dr.  Harris  has  stated  the  whole  case  so  far  as  the  "infant" 
is  concerned  in  Psychologic  Foundations  of  Education,  p.  301  : 

To  see  the  significance  of  imitation  in  the  child-mind,  we  must  look  upon 
it  not  as  a  comparatively  feeble  and  mechanical  effort,  as  something  deter- 
mined by  outside  influences,  but  as  a  phase  of  self-activity  which  is  engaged 
in  emancipating  the  self  from  heredity  and  natural  impulse.  We  must  not 
lose  sight  of  this  essential  fact,  that  shows  itself  even  in  the  most  rudimentary 
of  the  phenomena  of  imitation.  There  can  be  no  imitation  whatever  except 
on  the  part  of  self-active  beings  —  in  other  words,  only  souls  can  imitate. 
"  Imitation,"  says  M.  Compayr^,  "is  the  reproduction  of  what  one  has  seen 
another  do."  It  is  therefore  always  to  some  extent  an  act  of  assimilation. 
Even  if  we  extend  the  meaning  of  imitation  so  as  to  include  unconscious 
mimicry  and  all  phenomena  akin  to  hypnotic  suggestion,  still  it  is  self- 
activity  that  does  the  imitating.  What  is  beheld  as  an  act  of  another  is 
converted  by  adoption  into  an  act  of  self.  The  pride  and  pleasure  that  the 
infant  exhibits  on  the  occasion  of  his  first  conscious  imitation  has  its  root  in 
this,  that  he  has  made  something  his  own  —  has  proved  himself  equal  to 
imitating  in  himself  a  movement  by  his  will  —  he  has  revealed  his  selfhood 
to  some  extent.  This  is  the  significance  of  play,  which  is  chiefly  imitation, 
that   the   undeveloped   human  being   is   learning  to  know  himself  by  seeing 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  23 

what  he  can  do.  He  is  revealing  himself  to  others  and  to  himself,  and  getting 
strength  in  his  individuality.  Thus  we  see  that  there  is  an  element  of  origin- 
ality in  the  most  mechanical  phase  of  imitation.  The  self  is  active  and 
assimilative.  It  sees  an  external  deed  which  it  proceeds  to  make  its  own 
deed  by  imitation.  The  child  proves  itself  to  possess  a  human  nature  identi- 
cal with  the  one  whom  it  imitates. 

To  these  very  significant  words  of  Dr.  Harris  should  be  added 
Preyer's  statement  in  Mifid  of  the  Child:   The  Senses  and  the  Will:' 

In  order  to  imitate  one  must  first  perceive  through  the  senses ;  secondly, 
have  an  idea  what  has  been  perceived  ;  thirdly,  execute  a  movement  corre- 
sponding to  this  idea However  often  imitation  has  the  appearance  of 

an  involuntary  movement,  yet  when  it  was  executed  the  first  time,  it  must 
have  been  executed  with  intention  —  /.  e.,  voluntarily.  When  a  child  imi- 
tates, it  has  already  a  will. 

These  quotations  express  with  such  clearness  and  fulness  my  own 
conception  of  the  nature  of  imitation  that  little  more  needs  to  be  said 
here.  Imitation  is  essentially,  in  all  its  phases,  a  matter  of  reaction  to 
suggestion.  It  is  the  common  process  of  all  manifestation  of  life.  All 
organic  development  proceeds  in  this  way:  the  outer  world  impinges 
upon  the  nervous  mechanism,  and  the  sensuous  life  moves  out  to  meet 
it  in  a  more  or  less  rationally  ordered  reaction.  The  effort  to  deter- 
mine when  the  infant  "begins  to  imitate"  the  life  of  those  about  him 
must  in  the  end  prove  as  fruitless  as  the  speculations  of  the  theologians 
as  to  the  origin  of  the  individual  human  soul.  The  child  begins  to 
imitate  when  it  begins  lo  perceive  the  world  about  it. 

Toute  perception  se  ramfene  plus  ou  moins  k  une  imitation,  \  la  creation 
en  nous  d'un  etat  correspondant  k  celui  que  nous  percevons  chez  autrui ; 
toute  perception  est  une  sorte  de  suggestion  qui  commence  et  (jui,  chcz  cer- 
tains individus,  n'^tant  pas  neutralis^e  par  d'autres,  s'ach^ve  en  actions.' 

To  the  artificial  opposition  between  "imitation"  and  "originality" 
—  between  "copying"  and  "creating" — are  to  be  traced  numberless 
evils  of  educational  procedure.  The  assumption  is  that  certain  expe- 
riences may  be  had  mediately  or  vicariously,  that  one  may  receive 
into  his  life  the  result  of  the  experiencing  of  another  done  up  in  the 
"original  package,"  without  any  true  creative  movement  on  his  own 
part.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  assumed  that  in  some  experiences  one 
creates  ad  initio,  t\en  exnihilo,  wholly  "original  products."  The  error 
here  consists  in  the  idea  that  there  are  two  distinct  modes  of  experien- 
cing, rather  than  varying  degrees  of  activity  and  self-direction.  It  is 
the  same  misconception  that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  neurotic  theory 

1  Brown's  translation,  p.  282.  =  GirvAU,  Education  et  hiriditt,  p.  lo. 


■  or  T- 
UNIVEF 


2  4  SUGGESTION  IN  ED  VGA  TJON 

of  hypnosis.     All  life  is  self-directed  life,  and  all  acts  of  organic  being 
originate  in  self-activity. 

SUGGESTION    IN    EDUCATIVE    GUIDANCE. 

In  the  preceding  pages  we  have  discussed  at  some  length  the  nature 
of  "suggestion"  in  both  abnormal  and  normal  life,  seeking  to  free 
the  term  from  its  common  limitation  to  certain  manifestations  in  the 
hypnotic  state  and  to  show  that  it  is  a  factor  in  all  psychic  move- 
ments. Before  treating  of  its  use  in  the  processes  of  education,  it  is 
necessary  to  perform  a  somewhat  similar  service  for  the  term  "educa- 
tion," supplementing  the  brief  discussion  given  on  page  1 1. 

The  term  "education"  is  often  used  loosely  to  designate  the  whole 
process  of  development  of  the  individual  during  the  period  of  youth. 
Properly,  however,  it  denotes  the  development  which  takes  place 
under  the  intentional  guidance  of  more  mature  persons.  While 
immediate  contact  with  the  physical  environment  furnishes  materials 
for  enlarged  life  and  stimulates  to  self-directed  growth,  there  is  no 
education  in  such  self-ordered  development.  Environment  cannot 
educate  a  man,  nor  can  he  "educate  himself."  He  may  systematically 
guide  his  own  life  in  its  constructive  movement  so  as  to  reach  a  high 
degree  of  development,  by  availing  himself  fully  of  the  materials  in 
his  physical  and  social  environment ;  but  such  unaided  maturing  of 
oneself  lacks  the  characteristic  element  of  education,  namely,  directive 
guidance  by  another.  The  teacher  intentionally  guides  his  pupil  in  the 
appropriation  of  life-materials  and  in  the  organization  of  the  life- 
content  so  as  to  make  the  development  more  rapid,  consistent  and  per- 
manent. The  term  "  teacher,"  as  used  here,  designates  anyone  who 
gives  conscious  guidance  to  the  life  of  another.  It  may  be  the  parent, 
the  minister,  the  school-teacher,  the  editor,  the  author — whoever 
intentionally  directs  the  experiences  of  another.  Education  belongs 
peculiarly  to  the  period  of  youth,  though  it  is  properly  continued  in 
varying  degrees  throughout  life.  It  aims  by  the  right  ordering  of  the 
environment  to  secure  a  more  healthy  and  more  complete  life.  It  is 
to  the  human  infant  what  the  gardener's  cultivation  is  to  the  plant ;  and 
just  as  the  apple  developed  by  the  horticulturalists'  art  differs  from  the 
fruit  of  the  wild  tree,  so  the  educated  man  differs  from  "  nature's 
product." 

This  limiting  of  the  term  "education"  to  what  is  often  called 
"  formal  education  "  is  not  at  all  arbitrary.  The  narrower  meaning  is 
that  of  common  speech.     When  we  speak  of  a  man's  "education,"  we 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  25 

mean  that  development  that  he  has  received  through  the  instruction 
and  discipline  of  some  form  of  school  life ;  and  of  a  man  who  has 
made  himself  a  place  among  his  fellows  unaided,  as  far  as  that  is  pos- 
sible, by  such  sympathetic  guidance,  we  say  "he  has  accomplished 
much  for  a  man  lacking  education."  But  we  need  not  confine  our 
claim  for  justification  of  our  use  of  the  term  to  common  speech; 
those  who  attempt  a  scientific  discussion  of  the  aims  and  processes  of 
education  —  even  those  who  formally  define  the  term  in  the  broader 
sense — treat  the  whole  matter  from  the  standpoint  of  the  teacher  and 
constantly  limit  the  meaning  of  the  word  to  the  guided  maturing  of 
the  individual.  It  would  certainly  be  an  interesting  study  to  consider 
critically  the  formal  definitions  of  "education"  in  the  more  scientific 
treatises  on  that  subject  against  the  backgrounds  of  the  respective 
treatises  themselves ;  but  such  an  investigation  is  apart  from  our 
present  purpose,  and  we  must  content  ourselves  with  a  somewhat  dog- 
matic statement  of  what  is  believed  to  be,  not  only  the  true,  but  also 
the  common,  use  of  the  term.  It  will,  however,  contribute  to  clear- 
ness in  our  discussion  to  notice  briefly  the  various  forms  under  which 
this  definition  may  occur — forms  determined  by  the  different  stand- 
points from  which  the  definition  is  formulated,  but  all  embodying 
substantially  the  same  fundamental  conception. 

Education  may  be  defined  as  to  its  aim  from  two  distinct  points  of 
view:  the  psychological  and  the  sociological.  Psychologically  educa- 
tion is  "the  harmonious  development  of  all  the  human  powers" 
through  their  proper  exercise  ;  sociologically,  it  is  the  "  adaptation  of 
the  individual  to  the  civilization  into  which  he  is  born."  These 
definitions  are  complemental,  emphasizing  different  aspects  of  the 
same  general  conception.  The  psychological  looks  to  the  means  ;  the 
sociological  to  the  end.  It  is  in  the  latter  sense  that  Dr.  Harris  has 
defined  education  as  "the  elevation  of  the  individual  into  the  race." 
It  is  the  preparing  of  the  individual  for  future  social  functioning,  for 
sharing  in  the  duties  and  privileges  of  social  life,  through  participation 
in  a  simplified  form  of  that  life.  Most  of  the  classical  definitions  in 
educational  literature  can  be  arranged  under  the  one  or  the  other  of 
these  two  classes ;  and  much  that  is  unsatisfactory  in  educational 
theory  and  practice  is  due  to  such  partial  one-sided  conceptions.  Any 
adequate  statement  of  the  aim  of  education  must  recognize  both  the 
individual  and  the  social  factors.  The  "harmonious  development  of 
powers"  requires  as  material  means  the  facts  of  social  life  found  in  the 
common  consciousness ;  and  the  process  of  "  socializing  the  individual " 


2 6  SUGGESTION  IN  ED UCA  TION 

is  by  giving  greater  individual  efficiency  in  the  enjoyment  and  pro- 
ductive use  of  the  facts  of  his  social  environment.  The  "individual 
man"  and  the  "social  man"  are  not  two  beings  capable  of  separate 
development;  the  highest  individual  life  involves  the  widest  social 
life,  and  the  richest  social  life  demands  the  most  perfect  individual 
life. 

Education  may  also  be  defined  as  a  product  or  as  a  process.  As  a 
product,  education  is  a  state  of  mental  development  and  equipment 
fitting  for  mature  life-functioning ;  as  a  process,  it  is  self-making 
through  the  progressive  reconstruction  of  experiences  under  the  stimu- 
lation of  the  physical  and  social  environment.  There  is  truth  in  each 
of  these  conceptions,  though  the  latter  is  far  more  productive  than  the 
former.  To  emphasize  the  product-conception,  to  regard  education  as 
an  equipment  that  can  be  quantitatively  measured,  encourages  procras- 
tination of  real  life-functioning  and  makes  school  life  artificial.  Thus 
to  make  the  final  cause  in  educational  procedure /w/wrif  having  instead 
of  present  being  is  to  make  much  of  life  barren  and  meaningless.  To 
be  "educated"  is  not  to  have  acquired  a  certain  knowledge-content 
and  to  have  developed  a  certain  skill  and  grace  in  self-direction  ;  all 
this  is  a  valuable  accompaniment  and  result  of  education,  but  educa- 
tion itself  is  a  matter  of  present  growth  for  its  own  sake.  It  is  a 
normal  life-process,  finding  its  meaning  and  value  within  the  process 
itself.  It  is  ordered  and  directed  present  life  in  its  relation  to  the 
whole  of  life. 

Nevertheless  the  product-conception  has  value  in  educational 
theory.  Each  stage  of  life  is  preparation  for  the  next  stage,  and  the 
whole  is  a  progressive  development.  All  educational  endeavor  should 
recognize  this  continuity  of  life,  and  there  should  always  be  the  for- 
ward look  of  anticipation  of  the  fuller  life  to  come.  Thus  the  teacher 
at  every  stage  of  his  guiding  work  should  keep  in  mind  the  possibili- 
ties of  future  functioning;  but  he  should  not  degrade  the  "school" 
into  an  artificial  mechanism  designed  to  prepare  for  a  hypothetical 
future  social  state.  Just  as  in  the  theological  world  man  has  suffered 
untold  miseries  from  regarding  the  present  life  as  a  mere  "proba- 
tionary state,"  preparation  for  a  "heaven"  after  death,  so  in  the  educa- 
tional world  the  school  life  is  vitiated  by  "preparing  to  live"  in  the 
"  real  life"  of  the  business  and  social  world. 

Again  education  may  be  defined  from  the  standpoint  of  the  teacher 
or  from  that  of  the  pupil.  From  the  side  of  the  teacher,  education  is 
"  the  conscious  direction  which   the   more  mature  mind  gives  to  the 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  27 

less  mature  in  its  efforts  to  develop,  elevate,  and  inform  itself;"  from 
that  of  the  pupil,  it  is  self-directed  activity  in  progressive  self-develop- 
ment under  the  guidance  and  stimulation  of  more  mature  leaders. 
These  two  definitions  express  but  two  aspects  of  the  same  process; 
and  one  or  the  other  is  to  be  preferred  in  view  of  the  particular  pur- 
pose of  the  definer.  The  central  idea  in  both  is  that  there  can  be  no 
education  without  conscious  guidance  of  one  person  by  another. 
While  it  is  conceivable  that  an  individual  could  develop  in  direct 
contact  with  his  physical  environment,  without  the  mediation  and 
assistance  of  social  life  and  institutions,  such  "  rubbing  into  conscious 
life  "  by  the  friction  of  the  physical  world  is  not  education,  though  the 
term  is  often  used  uncritically  to  include  this  so-called  "  informal 
education." 

We  may  now  summarize  critically  the  ideas  involved  in  these 
various  phases  of  our  definition  and  gather  the  results  into  a  formal 
enunciation  of  an  explicit  and  comprehensive  definition.  First,  as  to 
its  content,  education  is  both  social  and  individual.  It  is  the  process 
of  socializing  the  individual  through  maturing  him.  The  aim,  as  *'  a 
rationalized  endeavor,"  is  both  social  and  psychological  —  social  as  it 
looks  to  functioning  in  society,  and  psychological  as  it  looks  to  self-real- 
ization through  normal  life-processes.  The  materials  of  education  are 
social ;  the  process  is  psychological.  Individuals  are  "  elevated  into 
the  race  "  by  integrating  into  their  lives  experiences  originating  in  the 
social  environment.  Second,  as  to  its  form,  education  is  a  process 
rather  than  a  product  —  more,  it  is  a  process  that  is  not  merely  a 
means  to  some  external  end,  but  a  process  that  finds  its  end  within 
itself.  Present  character,  not  future,  is  the  end  of  the  reconstruction 
of  self  in  education.  It  deals  with  what  the  child  now  is  as  seen  in 
relation  to  the  whole  of  his  life.  It  is  a  directing  of  his  growth  by 
intensifying,  emphasizing,  and  classifying  his  passing  experiences  so  as 
to  enrich  and  strengthen  his  life.  Education  views  life  in  its  present 
phase  as  a  continuous  process  building  constructively  toward  an  ideal 
end.  Third,  as  to  its  scope,  education  must  be  restricted  rigorously 
to  what  has  been  called  "  formal  education,"  that  is,  to  the  intentional 
guidance  of  the  maturing  mind  by  the  more  mature  mind.  The 
source  of  the  present  confusion  regarding  the  relation  of  psychology  to 
pedagogy  is  due,  so  far  as  the  pedagogists  are  to  be  blamed  for  it,  to 
not  restricting  the  field  of  pedagogy  to  what  is  strictly  educational. 
The  development  of  the  human  being  considered  apart  from  the 
rational  guidance  of  his  more  mature  associates  is  a  proper  subject  of 


2  8  SUGGESTION  IN  ED  UCA  TION 

psychology,  but  not  of  pedagogy.  Thus  our  discussion  leads  us  to 
regard  education  as  a  psychological  process  to  be  viewed  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  teacher.  This  conception  is  embodied  in  the 
definition  given  on  page  1 1.  More  briefly  it  may  be  said  that  education 
is  the  guidance  of  the  life  of  another  toward  the  complete  realization  of  its 
possibilities. 

Teaching  is  the  process  of  educating  as  seen  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  educator.  To  teach  another  is  to  determine  his  devel- 
opment by  controlling  the  circumstances,  ordering  the  materials, 
and  stimulating  the  activity  of  his  growth.  Teaching  is  the  art  of 
education,  as  pedagogy  is  the  science.  As  an  art  its  product  is  ful- 
ness and  vigor  of  life  in  the  individual  taught.  The  teacher  forms  the 
character  of  his  pupil  by  determining  his  experiences.  Probably  no 
better  definition  of  teaching  has  been  formulated  than  that  of  Arnold 
Tompkins :  "  Teaching  is  the  process  by  which  one  mind,  from  set 
purpose,  produces  the  life-unfolding  process  in  another;"  or  as  he 
also  states  it:  "Teaching  is  the  conscious  process  of  producing 
mental  experiences  [in  another]  for  the  purpose  of  life-development." 
In  its  extent  the  term  "  teaching  "  is  identical  with  the  term  "  educa- 
tion," though  an  effort  is  often  made  to  limit  it  to  a  narrower  field. 
A  good  example  of  this  error  in  restricting  the  meaning  of  the  term 
is  to  be  found  in  a  late  teacher's  manual:'  "The  teacher's  work  is  of 
a  threefold  character  :  he  has  in  the  first  place  to  organize  his  school; 
secondly,  to  govern  his  children  ;  and  thirdly,  to  teach."  Since  to  teach 
is  to  present  the  best  conditions  for  complete  living  and  to  incite  to 
such  living,  it  includes  the  organization  of  the  school  and  the  govern- 
ment of  the  children  as  well  as  the  "  teaching  of  knowledge."  As  a 
helper  toward  complete  living,  toward  the  realization  of  a  rich,  full 
life,  the  teacher's  art  embraces  all  that  contributes  directly  to  this  end. 

There  is  no  teaching  without  learning.  The  two  processes  are 
complemental ;  or,  rather,  they  are  the  two  aspects  of  the  same  edu- 
cative process.  The  educator /^a<r-^^j  /  his  y>\xy>'\\  learns.  If  the  pupil 
does  not  learn  simultaneously  with  the  teaching  effort  of  the  educator, 
then  there  is  no  true  teaching.  Learning  is  the  effect  of  which  teach- 
ing is  the  cause;  and  since  no  cause  can  exist,  as  a  cause,  apart  from 
its  effect,  there  can  be  no  teaching  without  learning.  Jacotot's  defini- 
tion of  "teaching"  is  significant  here  :  "Teaching  is  causing  another 
to   learn." 

Teaching  has  two  {doctors,  instruction  and  discipline  —  the  first  as  the 

«  Landon,  Principles  and  Practices  of  Teaching  and  Class  Managtment,  p.  4. 


I    UNIVcRSIT*. 
V    /N      or 

SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  29 

adding  of  knowledge-material  to  the  soul-substance,  and  the  second 
as  the  organization  of  the  soul-content  through  its  functional  expres- 
sion. In  instruction  the  teacher  is  employed  in  so  ordering  the 
available  life-materials  as  to  secure  on  the  part  of  his  pupil  such  an 
appropriation,  both  as  to  kind  and  quantity,  as  will  contribute  to  the 
most  healthful  and  vigorous  growth.  He  seeks  to  enlarge  the  life 
through  chosen  experiences.  From  his  wider  view  of  life's  possibili- 
ties and  more  definite  conception  of  the  highest  good,  he  is  enabled 
to  select  from  the  residue  of  race-experiencing  the  most  nourishing 
materials  and  so  to  prepare  and  serve  them  as  to  secure  their  incor- 
poration into  the  individual  life  which  he  seeks  to  influence.  Thus  he 
needs  to  combine  the  qualifications  of  a  good  marketer,  a  good  cook, 
and  a  good  server  of  mental  viands.  He  aims  at  mental  growth  by 
building  into  {in-strud)  the  life  of  his  pupil  materials  taken  from  com- 
mon consciousness.  Just  as  the  gardener  carefully  places  about  the 
roots  of  the  plant  chosen  food-materials  and  seeks  to  stimulate  it  to 
their  appropriation  and  assimilation  by  controlling  the  circumstances 
of  heat,  light,  and  moisture,  so  the  teacher,  as  instructor,  controls  the 
physical  and  social  environment  of  his  pupil  with  a  definite  view  to 
the  determining  of  the  volume  and  form  of  the  soul-content. 

In  discipline  the  teacher  is  concerned  with  expression.  .Ml  com- 
pleted experiencing  eventuates  in  some  form  of  expression.  Every 
psychosis  tends  to  an  outgoing  motor  discharge.  No  life-movement 
is  complete  until  it  has  expressed  itself  in  and  through  the  bodily 
structure.  Expression  is  an  element  in  all  thinking.  Language  is 
more  than  "a  means  of  expressing  thought ;"  it  is  a  means  of  think- 
ing. We  do  not  think  thoughts  completely  and  then  select  verbal 
clothing  for  them  ;  we  think  in  words.  All  constructive  thought  is  in 
language.  The  volitional  movement  to  express  gives  definite  form  to 
the  thought ;  and  all  life  culminates  in  expression.  The  soul  expresses 
itself  in  the  body  which  it  builds  about  it,  expression  being  merely  the 
culmination  of  the  organizing  psychic  movements.  This  disciplinary 
side  of  education  has  not  been  recognized  as  a  vital  part  of  the  acquisi- 
tive process  itself.  Expression  is  commonly  treated  as  a  means  of 
exhibiting  results  already  acquired,  the  teacher  demanding  formal 
expression  of  his  pupils  merely  as  a  means  of  determining  the  existence 
of  a  completed  mental  state.  It  is  not  commonly  regarded  as  an 
essential  fact  in  the  psychosis  itself,  but  as  a  separable  evidence  that 
the  psychosis  has  been.  Thus  the  common  "recitation"  in  the  ele- 
mentary school   is  a  barren  performance  upon  dead  forms  of  verbal 


3°  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION 

utterance,  instead  of  a  constructive  thinking  exercise  culminating  in 
normal  expression  of  a  present  life-movement.  In  it  the  teacher, 
instead  of  guiding  actual  life,  endeavors  to  discover  what  a  past  move- 
ment has  been,  thus  attempting  a  psychological  impossibility.  What 
is  true  in  the  elementary  school  is  true  in  slightly  varied  form  in  sec- 
ondary and  higher  education.  Nowhere  have  teachers  grasped  the 
idea  of  the  psychological  nature  of  expression,  and  consequently  we 
have  the  unnatural  divorcing  of  instruction  and  discipline. 

The  fallacy  of  "discipline"  apart  from  knowledge-content  is  even 
more  destructive  of  true  education  than  that  of  securing  the  mechanical 
acquisition  of  knowledge  through  "  instruction  "  that  does  not  involve 
expression.  One  cannot  be  trained  to  live  by  any  sort  of  intellectual 
gymnastics.  Living  is  a  growth,  involving  both  the  acquisition  of 
materials  and  the  organization  of  the  structure.  There  is  no  training 
apart  from  the  content  on  which  we  train  ;  and  no  work  of  the  teacher 
can  have  any  possible  educational  value  that  does  not  enrich  the  con- 
tent of  life  through  true  growth.  All  education  involves  both  instruc- 
tion and  discipline  ;  there  must  be  both  increase  in  the  volume  of  life 
and  more  perfect  organization  of  its  structure. 

It  follows  from  our  definition  of  "  education  "  and  the  subsequent 
explication  that  all  educative  guidance  must  be  affirmative  in  its  char- 
acter. Education  is  a  constructive  guidance  of  life,  conserving, 
organizing,  and  directing  its  good  elements  toward  perfection  of 
development  and  functioning.  It  consists  essentially  in  encouraging 
and  aiding  the  process  of  self-making  along  the  natural  line  of  normal 
growth.  The  educator  must  believe  in  humanity,  must  incorporate 
into  his  pedagogical  creed  the  proposition  that  "  man  naturally  grows 
right."  He  must  recognize  his  powerlessness  to  originate  in  his 
pupil's  life  a  movement  or  a  state  wholly  foreign  to  the  character  of 
that  life.  If  man  were  "  born  faced  hellward,"  no  human  power  could 
"convert  him,"  whatever  may  be  the  possibilities  on  the  divine  side. 
Just  as  the  plant  builds  up  its  plant  life,  under  circumstances  more  or 
less  favorable  to  a  perfect  realization  of  its  planthood,  so  the  human 
being  builds  up  his  humanity,  more  or  less  dwarfed  and  distorted  by 
his  environment,  but  still  his  humanity  in  its  struggle  toward  perfect 
realization.  It  is  not  the  teacher's  business  to  change  the  "nature" 
with  which  he  deals,  but  only  to  recognize  it,  foster  it,  and  strengthen 
it.  In  so  doing  he  can  deal  with  the  present  life  only,  finding  prepa- 
ration for  the  future  in  enriching  the  present.  All  life  prepares  for 
life,  and  there  is  no  preparation  for  life  but  life  itself.     He  who  would 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  3 1 

live  tomorrow  must  live  today  —  not  today  as  today  merely,  but  today 
as  a  stage  of  the  whole  development.  The  teacher's  work  is  necessarily 
limited  to  the  directing  of  actually  existent  forces,  that  their  resultant 
shall  have  a  desired  character  ;  and  he  must  see  the  resultant  in  the 
actual  present  play  of  the  forces.  It  is  present  character,  not  future 
character,  that  is  the  true  object  of  education.  Not  to  become  a  good 
man,  but  to  be  a  good  boy,  is  the  highest  ideal  for  the  pupil.  If  the 
teacher  is  able  to  see  that  his  pupil  lives  today  as  he  ought  to  live  for 
today's  needs  and  opportunities,  the  life  of  tomorrow  will  be  easy  and 
natural,  and  a  progressive  development  will  be  secured. 

One  does  not  become  essentially  better  by  "quitting  his  meanness." 
Negative  goodness  is  at  best  "good-for-nothingness."  The  secret  of 
all  goodness  is  in  being  good.  One  does  not  develop  strength  by  deal- 
ing with  his  weakness;  but  all  genuine  curative  treatn)ent  is  by  direct- 
ing and  strengthening  "nature's  powers."  It  is  the  teacher's  business, 
like  that  of  the  true  physician,  to  discover,  guide,  and  encourage  the 
life  which  the  pupil  actually  has,  treating  all  defects  and  weaknesses 
negatively  only.  His  work  is  constructive,  using  nature's  materials,  in 
nature's  way,  and  for  nature's  end.  A  full  comprehension  of  this 
great  truth  would  eliminate  from  our  schools  by  far  the  greater  part  of 
all  punishment,  drill-work,  and  barren  tasks  that  are  now  so  destructive 
of  normal  child-life. 

ALL    EDUCATIVE    GUIDANCE    IS    THROUGH    SUGGESTION    AND    REACTION. 

This  fundamental  law  of  pedagogy  has  been  foreshadowed  in  all 
the  preceding  discussion  on  the  nature  of  education  ;  and  it  now  only 
remains  to  show  as  definitely  and  as  concretely  as  possible  its  applica- 
tion in  the  teaching  process.  It  is  not  a  question  of  when  to  employ 
suggestion  in  teaching,  but  of  how  to  employ  it.  The  law  is  not  a 
statement  of  what  ought  to  be  or  what  is  best  in  educational  practice, 
but  rather  of  what  everywhere  is  and  has  always  been  in  all  true  edu- 
cational procedure.  Teachers  have  always  accomplished  their  work  by 
suggestion,  even  when  most  unconscious  of  the  real  nature  of  their 
actions.  The  word  "all"  in  the  statement  of  the  law  above  indicates 
the  writer's  answer  as  to  when  to  employ  suggestion.  The  claim  is 
that  there  can  be  no  education  apart  from  suggestion.  This  will  be 
established  by  answering  the  practical  question  :  How  does  the  teacher 
quicken  and  enlarge  the  mental  life  of  his  pupil  by  suggestion  ?  Of 
course,  to  prescribe  definite  rules  for  the  practice  of  pedagogical  sug- 
gestion  is  absurd  quackery  ;  the  procedure  here,  as  in  all  true  art,  is  by 


32  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION 

the  rational  use  of  materials  in  reaching  an  ideal  end  under  the  actual 
concrete  conditions.  In  the  article  on  "Suggestion  "  in  the  sixth  vol- 
ume of  Rein's  Encyclopiidisches  Hatidbuch  der  Fddagogik,  Wendt  says  : 
"  Die  Anwendung  der  padagogischen  Suggestion  kann  nicht  durch 
Regeln  erlautert  und  geordnet  werden.  Diese  Anwendung  erfordert 
Takt."  Still  it  is  possible  to  indicate  in  a  general  way  and  to  illus- 
trate by  examples  the  place  of  suggestion  in  teaching. 

"Education,  in  my  opinion,  is  nothing  else  than  a  totality  of 
co-ordinated  and  reasoned-out  suggestions." '  In  education  the 
teacher  brings  into  the  life  of  his  pupil  through  suggestion  a  succes- 
sion of  images,  which,  operating  as  germinant  centers  of  experien- 
cing, determine  progressively  the  line  of  his  life-development.  He 
seeks  to  guide  the  life  from  within,  that  is,  to  influence  the  develop- 
ment by  the  communication  of  a  factor  that  is  spontaneously  wrought 
out  in  the  activity  of  the  life  itself.  In  all  true  teaching  no  effort  is 
made  to  constrain  the  life  of  the  pupil  from  without,  to  force  its  cur- 
rent by  external  pressure.  »The  pupil's  life  is  modified  by  presenting 
to  him  a  conception  of  what  he  may  be  or  do  and  an  incentive  for  its 
realization.  In  this  consists  the  whole  art  of  teaching.  The  teacher 
initiates  the  experience  and  provides  for  its  motor  discharge. 

Pedagogical  suggestion,  it  must  be  insisted,  is  a  normal  life-process; 
it  is  not  hypnotic  influence.    In  Wendt's  article,  quoted  above,  he  says: 

Mit  dieser  [Suggestion  im  Zustand  der  Hypnose]  hat  die  padagogische 
Suggestion  nur  ausnahmsweise  etwas  gemein,  denn  nur  in  wenigen  speziel- 
len  Fallen  darf  die  Hypnose  in  der  Erziehung  Anwendung  finden  und  kann 
von  einer  Verbindung  der  padagogischen  Suggestion  mit  der  Hypnose  die 
Rede  sein. 

In  an  earlier  part  of  this  discussion  an  effort  was  made  to  show 
that  suggestion  in  hypnosis  is  essentially  the  same  as  suggestion  in 
the  normal  state;  but  this  does  not  signify  that  the  conditions  are  the 
same.  In  the  hypnotic  state  the  life-current  is  narrowed  to  a  mere 
rill,  easily  deflected  in  any  desired  direction.  Doubtless  hypnotic 
suggestion  could  be  employed  for  educational  purposes  —  in  fact,  that 
is  just  what  is  done  in  the  curative  treatment  of  various  diseased  states. 
But  a  Heilmittel  is  not  a  true  type  of  a  Lehrmittel.  The  teacher's  work 
is  not  essentially  curative  or  corrective,  but  constructive  and  directive. 
The  "  health-pedagogy  "  of  the  teacher  is  affirmative  in  character,  sub- 
stituting health  for  disease.  Drastic  counteractive  treatment  has  no 
place  in  education.     Though   a  child   might  be   "cured"  of  an  evil 

'  GuYAU,  ilducation  et  hfriditi,  p.  xv. 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  33 

habit  through  post-hypnotic  suggestion,  the  possible  evil  consequences 
are  too  great  to  be  risked.  Whatever  may  be  the  final  verdict  of  the 
medical  world  upon  degrading  free  personality  to  a  neurotic  state  for 
even  the  most  benevolent  ends,  it  may  be  safely  asserted  that  this  is 
not  the  field  for  the  teacher.  He  must  deal  with  life  as  he  finds  it, 
with  the  most  reverent  attitude  toward  the  personalities  of  his  pupils. 

Since  all  normal  growth  is  right  growth,  it  is  only  necessary  for 
the  teacher  to  show  the  child  how  he  can  experience  the  best,  how  he 
can  live  the  most  completely.  A  healthy  life  inspired  by  good  moral 
instincts  is  easily  guided  toward  the  "  highest  good,"  not  only  as  an 
ultimate  aim,  but  in  each  separate  act  of  experiencing.  We  lead 
people  to  better  life  by  suggesting  the  conception  that  they  are  />/ 
reality  better  than  they  appear;  to  assign  to  them  right  motives  is  to 
induce  them  to  justify  the  assumption,  on  the  other  hand,  to  consider 
them  base  is  to  strongly  urge  them  to  be  so.  One  makes  himself  moral 
by  believing  that  he  is  moral  in  his  true  inner  manhood.  'i"o  make 
one  conscious  of  his  goodness  is  the  true  secret  of  all  moral  education. 
It  is  a  fundamental  postulate  of  all  pedagogy  that  humanity  is  essen- 
tially good;  and  this  is  applied  to  the  individual  case  by  presupposing 
in  the  individual  the  germs  of  the  life  we  would  have  him  live.  Good- 
ness is  more  than  the  mere  negation  of  badness;  it  is  life  itself  in  its 
true  development;  "  it  is  the  natural  way  of  living." 

Guyau'  says: 

All  education  should  be  directed  to  this  end,  namely,  to  convince  the 
child  that  he  is  capable  0/  good  and  incapable  of  evil,  in  order  to  give  him 
this  ability  and  this  inability;  to  persuade  him  that  he  has  a  strong  will,  in 
order  to  communicate  to  him  force  of  will;  to  make  him  believe  that  be  is 
morally  free,  master  of  himself,  in  order  that  "the  idea  of  moral  freedom," 
may  tend  to  realize  itself  progressively. 

To  clearly  conceive  the  possible  in  normal  life-functioning  is  to 
proceed  at  once  to  make  it  actual.  The  ideal  is  thus  the  formative 
real. 

In  the  particular  teaching  act  the  teacher  directs  attention  by  sug- 
gestion to  a  phase  of  life  and  provides  for  the  culmination  of  the 
experience  in  a  definite  expressive  movement.  For  example,  suppose 
the  teacher  desires  to  secure  from  his  pupils  more  strenuous  effort  in 
their  study.  He  says,  on  the  proper  occasion:  "How  well  we  have 
done  our  work  today!  We  really  have  understood  it  all,  and  have  dis- 
cussed it  clearly.     The  lesson  for  tomorrow  will  lead  us  a  little  farther 

I  op.  ctt,,  p.  17. 


34  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION 

into  the  same  subject,  but  there  is  also  a  new  discovery  which  I  know 
we  shall  all  enjoy."  The  suggestion  of  the  ability  to  do  good  work 
made  here,  carrying  with  it  the  less  definite  suggestion  of  the  obliga- 
tion, will  in  the  natural  course  of  things  work  out  the  desired  result. 
Again,  suppose  the  teacher  wishes  to  teach  the  value  of  the  accurate 
measurement  of  space  dimensions,  or  more  immediately  to  teach  the 
use  of  the  graduated  measuring  scale,  having  supplied  his  pupils  with 
such  rulers,  he  will  in  their  presence  use  one  of  the  rulers  in  determin- 
ing the  length  and  width  of  his  desk  or  of  a  book,  and  then  leave 
them  free  to  measure  such  objects  as  present  themselves  to  their 
convenience  or  fancy.  A  suggestive  question  as  to  the  use  that  a  car- 
penter can  make  of  such  a  ruler  will  start  a  variety  of  exploring 
expeditions  about  the  room.  The  composition  by  the  pupils  in  the 
University  Elementary  School  of  simple  songs,  both  words  and  music, 
is  accomplished  wholly  through  suggestion.  The  season  of  the  year 
or  the  lesson  in  history  furnishes  the  theme,  and  the  tactful  teacher 
guides  by  stimulating  touch  the  creative  work.  The  song  is  the 
expression  of  the  life  of  the  pupils  themselves,  felt  by  them  to  be  so 
both  in  matter  and  form.  It  is  the  expression  of  genuine  experien- 
cing under  the  most  unobtrusive  guidance.  In  teaching  various  forms 
of  inventional  drawing,  such  as  industrial  designing,  the  motif  pre- 
sented by  the  teacher  suggests  a  figure  to  be  elaborated  by  the  pupil. 
In  elaborating  the  design  the  pupil  feels  the  pleasure  of  creating  and 
is  scarcely  conscious  that  he  does  not  originate  the  entire  work.  The 
proper  "assigning  of  a  lesson"  in  any  subject  is  a  suggestion  of 
possible  ordered  experiencing  by  the  pupil.  The  judicious  teacher 
starts  a  movement  which  the  pupil  completes  in  the  natural  function- 
ing of  his  own  powers.  The  life  is  touched  suggestively,  and  interests 
are  aroused  which  lead  on  to  active  endeavor  in  the  subsequent  private 
study.  By  a  suitable  "  preliminary  drill  "  the  way  is  opened  for  ear- 
nest living  in  a  new  and  wider  field.  In  all  true  teaching  the  impetus 
to  master  the  task  set  is  found  in  the  spontaneous  life  of  the  pupil, 
who  simply  lives  out  the  suggestion  given  by  the  teacher. 

What  is  known  as  "  the  power  of  example"  is  a  mighty  force  in 
determining  the  life  of  the  child.  In  the  very  simplicity  of  his  life  he 
is  more  open  to  suggestion  than  the  adult  person  ;  and  the  circum- 
stances of  his  life  readily  influence  his  actions.  Some  years  ago  Bishop 
Huntington,  of  New  York,  emphasized  in  a  forcible  manner  the  value 
of  "unconscious  tuition  "  in  school  work.  In  the  opening  sentences 
of  the  address  he  says  : 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCA  TION  3  5 

By  unconscious  tuition  I  mean  that  part  of  a  teacher's  work  which  he 
does  when  he  seems  not  to  be  doing  anything  at  his  work  at  all.  It  has 
appeared  to  me  that  some  of  the  most  nutritive  and  effective  functions  of  an 
instructor  are  really  performed  while  he  seems  least  to  be  instructing.  To 
apprehend  these  fugitive,  subtile  forces,  playing  through  the  business  of  edu- 
cation with  such  fine  energy,  and  if  possible  to  bring  them  within  the  range 
of  practical  dealing,  is  the  scope  of  my  present  design.' 

Again  on  page  5  he  says  : 

My  main  propositions  are  these  three:  first,  that  there  is  an  educating 
power  issuing  from  the  teacher,  not  by  voice  or  by  immediate  design,  but 
silent  and  involuntary,  as  indispensable  to  his  true  function  as  any  clement 
in  it;  second,  that  this  unconscious  tuition  is  yet  no  product  of  caprice  or  of 
accident,  but  takes  its  quality  from  the  undermost  substance  of  the  teacher's 
character;  and,  third,  that,  as  it  is  an  emanation  flowing  from  the  very  spirit 
of  his  own  life,  so  it  is  also  an  influence  acting  insensibly  to  form  the  life  of 
the  scholar. 

To  the  fundamental  conception  of  this  address  we  can  give  most  hearty 
assent.  The  teacher's  work  is  most  effective  when  he  obtrudes  him- 
self least  upon  the  personality  of  his  pupil.  It  is  what  he  gently  sug- 
gests that  is  most  fruitful  in  the  lives  of  those  whom  he  would  guide. 
It  is  also  true  that  the  pupil  learns  much  from  suggestions  originating 
in  the  example  of  his  teacher,  in  which  there  is  no  intentional  guidance 
at  all.  Thus  strong  belief  and  active  life  in  the  teacher  beget  like 
states  in  his  pupils.  The  pupils  imitate  the  tones,  the  gestures — all 
mannerisms  —  of  the  teacher,  reproducing  in  their  own  lives,  without 
conscious  intention,  the  good  and  the  bad  alike  of  the  teacher's  life. 
It  is  not  the  external  expression  alone  that  they  "copy;"  the  moral 
qualities  of  the  teacher's  life  affect  in  a  silent  way  their  lives.  As 
truly  as  masses  of  matter  act  upon  each  other  by  unseen  forces,  moral 
beings  influence  each  other  constantly  through  equally  intangible  means. 
The  teacher  who  lives  in  the  presence  of  the  child  lives  into  his  life 
powerful  factors  for  good  or  evil. 

But  the  title  chosen  by  Dr.  Huntington  seems  a  most  unfortunate 
one  for  any  strictly  pedagogical  interpretation  of  his  thoughts.  He 
designates  the  unintentional  influence  as  "unconscious  tuition,"  thus 
saying  that  a  teacher  can  teach  without  "  teaching."  His  expression 
is  a  contradiction.  There  cannot  be  unconscious  "  tuition."  The  word 
"tuition"  is  a  word  of  essentially  active  signification,  meaning  to 
"  care  for,"  to  "watch  over"  as  a  protector,  hence  actively  to  instruct 
in  that  which  is  most  beneficial  for  the  guarded  life.     All  tuition  must 

I  Unconscious  Tuition,  p.  3. 


36  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION 

be  conscious  and  intentional,  however  vague  the  aim  be.  It  is  the 
teacher's  duty  so  to  order  his  own  life  that  all  his  actions  may  speak 
to  his  pupils  for  their  good.  Conscious  that  "  like  begets  like,"  he 
must  live  as  he  would  have  his  pupils  live.  He  must  participate  sym- 
pathetically in  their  lives,  so  that  his  own  stronger  life  may  incite  in 
them  the  impulses  to  higher  living.  We  demand  of  the  pastor  not 
only  that  he  shall  teach  his  people  by  formal  utterance  how  they  ought 
to  live,  but  also  that  his  own  life  shall  be  a  daily  example  of  good 
living.  Equally  we  demand  of  the  teacher  in  our  schools  that  his 
"walk  and  conversation"  be  consciously  included  in  his  means  of 
teaching.  Froebel's,  "  Come  let  us  live  with  the  children,"  has  a 
deeper  meaning  than  is  usually  found  in  it.  It  is  in  living  with  his 
pupils  that  the  teacher  teaches  them  to  live.  He  takes  them  into 
partnership  with  him  in  this  business  of  directing  life's  affairs.  The 
true  teacher  is  a  senior  partner  in  a  firm  whose  business  is  living;  and 
he  shares  equitably  with  his  fellows  the  responsibilities  and  the  profits. 
With  Rousseau,  though  in  a  far  higher  sense  than  he  ever  conceived  of, 
he  can  say,  "  To  live  is  the  trade  I  wish  to  teach  my  pupil  ; "  and  he  can 
realize  his  desires  by  securing  participation  in  the  duties  and  pleasures 
of  the  life  he  wishes  pupils  to  lead,  thus  leading  them  into  life  through 
life. 

Study  is  consciously  intensified  mental  activity  directed  toward  a 
definite  cognitive  end.  In  its  etymology,  the  word  "study"  means 
"  to  pursue  eagerly."  In  study  one  pursues  with  more  or  less  eagerness 
an  experience  which  he  seeks  to  realize.  For  example,  the  student  of 
the  declension  oipenna  endeavors  to  intensify  his  mental  life  and  to 
direct  it  toward  the  realization  in  his  own  consciousness  of  the  formal 
succession  of  case  forms.  One  may  study  without  guidance,  determin- 
ing by  reflection  a  phase  of  life  upon  which  to  fix  persistently  the 
attention  and  about  which  to  concentrate  his  constructive  abilities; 
but  in  childhood  study  is  usually  under  the  guidance  of  a  teacher. 
Without  study  there  can  be  no  vigorous  growth.  It  is  only  intense 
life  that  is  healthy  and  that  leads  to  strong  character.  To  teach  well 
is  to  incite  to  study,  to  intensify  attention,  and  to  secure  the  formation 
of  habits  of  strenuous  life.  It  is  not  enough  merely  to  direct  by  sug- 
gestive touch  a  lazy  current;  true  teaching  accelerates  the  movement, 
converting  the  passive  suffering  of  experiences  into  active  seeking  for 
them.  The  suggestive  touch  must  be  made  so  as  not  only  to  deter- 
mine the  direction  of  the  life,  but  also  to  lead  it  to  greater  effort  for 
self-realization. 


SUGGESTION  IN  ED  UCA  TION  3  7 

The  chief  means  of  guiding  study  is  the  recitation.  There  is 
probably  no  word  in  the  pedagogical  terminology  more  abused  than 
the  word  "  recitation  ;  "  certainly  there  is  no  word  whose  current  use  is 
more  at  variance  with  the  central  conception  of  this  thesis.  The  so- 
called  "recitation"  is  too  often  artificially  divorced  from  the  vital 
movement  of  the  acquisition  of  knowledge.  It  is  conducted  as  a 
testing  for  the  results  of  experiences  already  completed.  Pupils  are 
"  examined  "  upon  what  they  are  supposed  to  have  "  learned  "  in  pre- 
vious "  study.  "  This  inquisition  degenerates  into  a  barren  perform- 
ance upon  the  husks  of  knowledge,  which  is  utterly  devoid  of  any 
educational  value.  The  "recitation  period,"  instead  of  being  a  time 
of  true  experiencing  under  the  stimulation  and  guidance  of  the 
teacher,  is  d,  post  mortem  examination  into  the  facts  of  past  life.  In  the 
true  recitation,  however,  the  teacher  guides  the  life  of  his  pupil  to  a 
more  vigorous  growth  through  suggesting  materials  and  demanding 
expression.  Such  a  recitation  is  related  both  to  the  previous  "  private 
study"  and  to  that  which  is  to  follow.  As  a  true  life-epoch  it  supple- 
ments and  corrects  that  which  has  taken  place  under  the  less  immediate 
direction  of  the  teacher  ;  and,  looking  forward,  it  suggests  image  cen- 
ters and  starts  processes  of  experiencing  which  may  be  carried  on  to 
completion  by  the  pupil  in  his  subsequent  study  alone.  The  recitation 
is  thus,  on  the  one  side,  a  sort  of  intellectual  clearing-house,  and,  on 
the  other,  a  general  "  office  hour"  for  the  more  immediate  supervision 
of  the  study.  In  guiding  his  pupils  in  their  study,  which  is  the  chief 
business  of  the  teacher,  the  assigning  of  tasks  and  the  examining  of 
results  are  only  incidental.  The  teacher  is  the  guider  of  this  eager 
endeavoring  after  complete  living  ;  and  the  recitation  is  the  time  when 
he  can  most  effectually  direct  the  zealous  seeking  for  that  which  gives 
most  life.  The  recitation  is  essentially  the  study  period  of  the  particu- 
lar subject  discussed,  the  time  to  be  especially  devoted  to  directing  the 
study  in  that  subject.  Thus  in  the  "geography  recitation  "  geography 
should  be  studied  under  the  immediate  guidance  and  stimulation  of  the 
teacher,  and  all  private  study  should  be  held  subsidiary  to  the  work  of 
this  more  intense  period.  The  preliminary  questioning  on  the  results 
of  the  preceding  private  study  should  be  merely  preparatory  to  the  new 
advance  now  to  be  made  ;  and  by  far  more  attention  should  be  given 
to  indicating  fields  to  explore,  /.  <?.,  to  "  assigning  the  lesson,"  than  to 
examining  for  results  of  the  previous  exploration.  The  expression  of 
the  recitation  should  always  be  the  natural  completion  of/>r^J<r«/ experi- 
ences ;  and  even  in  "  review  "  the  experiences  must  be  new.     There  is 


38  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION 

no  more  serious  error  in  all  educational  procedure  than  the  attempt  to 
warm  into  life  the  corpse  of  a  past  experience  —  to  bring  back  again 
an  experience  that  we  have  had.  There  should  never  be  expression  for 
expression's  sake,  but  always  as  a  manifestation  of  growth  in  its  normal 
movement.  So  conducted  the  recitation  becomes  the  true  center  of  all 
school  work,  a  real  means  of  suggestive  guidance. 

Just  as  in  the  case  of  the  word  "recitation,"  the  word  "school'''' 
needs  to  be  freed  from  a  false  connotation  to  reconcile  it  to  the  univer- 
sality of  our  law  of  suggestion.  A  school,  as  the  chief  educational 
instrumentality,  is  commonly  regarded  as  a  place  where  immature  per- 
sons are  equipped  for  later  life-functioning  by  gathering  a  certain  fund 
of  useful  knowledge  and  acquiring  a  certain  power  of  self-direction — 
in  short,  a  place  where  persons  prepare  to  live.  No  value  is  assigned  to 
the  school  life  as  such  ;  it  finds  its  significance  solely  in  the  preparation 
which  it  affords  for  a  future  hypothetical  stage  of  existence.  In  such  a 
view,  one  does  not  live  in  the  school,  but  simply  gets  ready  to  live. 

A  school,  defined  with  reference  to  the  ideal  of  this  essay,  is  a 
simplified  form  of  social  life — simplified  by  eliminating  all  that  is  nega- 
tive and  destructive,  and  by  conserving  and  organizing  all  that  is  affirm- 
ative and  constructive.  In  the  school  specially  equipped  and  trained 
guides  determine  minds  toward  such  "normal  growth  as  gives  the  fullest 
and  most  symmetrically  organized  life.  The  teacher,  dealing  with  the 
actual  present  phase  of  the  life,  directs  it  in  accordance  with  the  con- 
tinuous whole.  Beginning  in  the  possible  present,  he  builds  toward  an 
ideal  future,  without,  however,  losing  sight  of  the  fact  that  this  present 
is  real  life  of  value  for  itself.  Whatever  of  life  he  desires  for  his  pupils 
in  the  future  he  leads  them  to  participate  in  under  the  simplified  con- 
ditions of  the  present.  Considering  life  as  a  continuous  growth,  he 
sees  that  the  only  preparation  for  any  stage  of  it  is  to  be  found  in  the 
activities  of  the  preceding  stages.  One  stage  prepares  for  another  by 
furnishing  the  material  basis  and  the  motive  for  it ;  and  each  stage  is  a 
cross-section  of  the  whole  life-current,  concerned  solely  with  its  own 
experiences.  In  it  the  acquisition  of  materials  and  the  organization  of 
structure  is  for  its  own  purposes,  nothing  being  gathered  that  does  not 
belong  to  the  immediate  present.  The  school  is  then  a  social  organi- 
zation for  mutual  assistance  in  the  prosecution  of  studies  under  the 
leadership  of  a  more  mature  member  of  the  organization.  It  affords 
the  best  possible  means  of  effective  guidance  through  suggestion  of 
desirable  modes  of  functioning.  In  the  true  school  the  children  live 
under  the  unobtrusive  direction  and  stimulation  of  the  teacher. 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  39 

The  curricula  oi  the  school,  the  organized  body  of  available  educa- 
tive material,  constitute  a  current  in  which  the  pupil's  life  is  persistently 
confined  by  his  teacher.  The  "  branches  of  siudv  "  are  so  many 
phases  of  possible  experiencing  to  be  employed  by  the  teacher  in 
broadening  and  intensifying  the  life  that  he  guides.  .Vrithmetic,  if 
employed  rationally  at  all,  is  thought  to  afford  definitely  selected 
materials  for  suggesting  certain  desirable  forms  of  experience.  In  the 
residua  of  race-experiencing  preserved  in  the  text-books  the  teacher  has 
a  mine  of  wealth  for  his  educative  needs.  He  selects  the  matter  and 
presents  it  to  his  pupil  with  a  view  to  influencing  his  life  both  in  the 
immediate  present  and  throughout  its  continued  development.  He 
does  not  attempt  to  "  store  up"  «////m/ life-materials,  but  only  to  guide 
in  the  appropriation  from  the  content  of  common  consciousness  of  that 
which  contributes  to  the  individual  life.  The  curriculum  is  thus  a 
mediation  of  the  environment  designed  for  use  in  educative  guidance. 

It  is  in  "■punishment"  that  we  find  that  function  of  the  teacher,  if 
indeed  it  be  a  function  of  the  teacher,  most  at  variance,  both  in  theo- 
retical conception  and  in  current  practice,  with  true  educational  guid- 
ance. In  order  to  reconcile  this  negative  element  of  educational 
procedure  to  our  conception  of  guidance  by  suggestion,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  discuss  briefly  three  points  :  first,  the  general  nature  and 
function  of  punishment  in  the  bettering  of  humanity  ;  second,  the 
common  aims  and  methods  of  school  punishments  ;  and,  third,  the 
sense  in  which  punishment  may  be  made  to  contribute  affirmatively  to 
education. 

Punishment  is  the  intentional  infliction  of  pain  on  a  wrongdoer  in 
recognition  of  his  wrong  acts.  The  essential  element  in  punishment 
is  pain,  physical  or  mental.  It  must  come  as  an  opposing  or  disturb- 
ing element  into  the  pleasure  of  life,  temporarily  interrupting  and 
modifying  its  normal  movement.  It  must  also  be  intentionally  applied. 
Pain  unintentionally  given  to  another  is  not  punishment,  however 
much  it  may  appear  to  be  retribution  for  wrong  done.  "  Nature  " 
does  not  punish,  though  we  often  speak  of  the  suffering  which  one 
undergoes  in  consequence  of  an  improper  use  of  his  physical  environ- 
ment as  "nature's  punishment."  In  such  an  expression  there  is  doubt- 
less always  a  more  or  less  clearly  defined  personification  of  "  nature," 
in  which  we  regard  //«fr  as  intentiotially  inflicting  a  penalty  for  a  wrong 
done.  One  person  may,  however,  employ  "  natural  consequences  "  as 
means  of  inflicting  punishment  on  another,  that  is  he  may  control 
natural  reactions  rationally  for  his  own  ends.    Also  a  person  may  pun- 


40  ,  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCA  TION 

ish  himself,  by  bringing  about  intentionally  states  of  pain  in  himself 
in  recognition  of  his  own  wrong  acts  and  as  a  self-inflicted  retribution. 
In  all  cases  the  sufferer  of  punishment  must  be  recognized  as  a  wrong- 
doer. Pain  inflicted  upon  another  is  not  punishment  unless  in  recog- 
nition of  wrong  done.  The  sufferer  may  not  actually  be  a  wrongdoer, 
but  he  must  be  recognized  as  such  by  the  inflictor  of  the  punishment. 
Further,  the  pain  must  be  considered  to  be  in  some  sense  a  suitable 
reward  for  the  wrong  acts,  a  just  return  for  specific  evil  deeds.  The 
penalty  is  proportioned  by  the  punisher  to  the  extent  of  the  wrong  as 
seen  by  him — so  much  wrong,  so  much  pain. 

Writers  upon  ethics  generally  recognize  three  distinguishable  ends 
of  punishment :  first,  to  prevent  others  from  committing  like  offenses  ; 
second,  to  vindicate  the  law  ;  and  third,  to  educate  or  reform  the 
offender.  Sometimes  the  emphasis  is  laid  upon  one,  sometimes  upon 
another  of  these  ends  ;  but  usually  the  first  and  second  receive  the 
stress,  though  the  third  is  probably  never  Avholly  wanting  in  the  doc- 
trine of  any  modern  writer.  Paulsen  states  the  prevalent  view  :'  "The 
reform  of  the  convict  by  education  is  not  included  in  the  purpose  of 
punishment  as  such."  On  the  other  hand,  Seth  says  :"  "  The  end  of 
punishment  is  to  bring  home  to  the  man  such  a  sense  of  guilt  as  shall 
work  in  him  a  deep  repentance  for  the  evil  past,  and  a  new  obedience 
for  the  time  to  come."  Also  Plato,  in  Protagoras,  Jowett's  translation, 
324  B,  forcibly  presents  the  educative  end  : 

No  one  punishes  an  evil-doer  under  the  notion,  or  for  the  reason,  that  he 
has  done  wrong  —  only  the  unreasonable  fury  of  the  beast  acts  in  that  man- 
ner. But  he  who  desires  to  inflict  rational  punishment  does  not  retaliate  for 
a  past  wrong  which  cannot  be  undone  ;  he  has  regard  to  the  future,  and  is 
desirous  that  the  man  who  is  punished  may  be  deterred  from  wrong  again. 
He  punishes  for  the  sake  of  prevention,  thereby  clearly  implying  that  virtue 
is  capable  of  being  taught. 

This  conception  of  Plato's  is  becoming  more  and  more  that  of  the 
best  modern  political  and  ethical  thought.  Vindictiveness  and  brutal 
revenge  are  giving  place  to  a  desire  to  make  men  better,  both  in  the 
social  body  and  in  the  individual  man  upon  whom  the  punishment  falls. 
It  is  no  longer  literally  "  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth," 
though  it  still  lacks  much  of  "  turning  the  other  cheek  to  the  smiter." 
The  dominant  ideas  in  punishment  are  still  the  "  protection  of  society  " 
and  the  "  maintaining  of  the  majesty  of  the  law,"  with  but  little  regard 
to  reformation  of  the  individual  offender. 

•  System  of  Ethics,  Thilly's  translation,  p.  611.  ■'A  Study  of  Ethical  Principles,  p.  337. 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCA  TION  4  i 

In  school  punishments  we  have  the  same  diversity  of  conception 
regarding  the  ends  to  be  attained.  For  one  teacher  all  his  punish- 
ments are  concerned  primarily  with  "  vindicating  the  majesty  of  the 
law ;"  for  another,  with  securing  the  best  conditions  for  his  teaching 
through  an  arbitrarily  superimposed  government ;  and  for  still  another, 
with  correcting  the  wrong  life  through  repentance  following  upon  a 
realization  of  the  evil  done.  One  teacher  is  always  watchful  for  infrac- 
tions of  "rules  "for  school  behavior,  either  explicit  formulations  or 
implicit  conventionalities ;  and  on  the  discovery  of  such  wrongs 
against  authority  he  visits  upon  the  offender  punishment  sufficient  to 
heal  the  wounded  dignity.  Another,  impressed  with  the  idea  that  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  "  order  "  is  necessary  for  efficient  work  in  "  instructing  in 
knowledge,"  employs  punishment  as  a  means  of  securing  such  an 
orderly  state  of  his  school,  with  little  concern  about  its  effect  upon  the 
lives  of  the  individuals  punished  ;  the  individual  is,  in  fact,  punished 
for  the  good  of  the  community,  as  "an  example."  A  third  conceives 
punishment  to  be  a  sort  of  "  counter-irritant,"  valuable  as  a  means  of 
relieving  an  internal  congestion  of  "  badness,"  a  means  of  purging  the 
moral  life  of  its  impurities.  In  schoolroom  practice  the  punishment  is 
too  often  a  "  squaring  of  the  account."  Offenses  accumulate  until,  the 
patience  of  the  teacher  being  exhausted,  he  endeavors  at  one  fell  swoop 
to  deal  out  retribution  "on  general  principles."  In  zealously  "guard- 
ing the  law"  and  in  anxiously  "keeping  order"  the  teacher  makes 
unnecessary  issues  with  his  pupils,  in  which  the  mastery  is  often  won 
by  brute  force  alone.  This  same  artificial  "governing"  of  the  pupils 
gives  rise  to  threats  of  punishment  to  be  inflicted  for  anticipated  wrong 
acts. 

It  should  not  be  inferred  that  this  is  a  true  picture,  either  in  theory 
or  practice,  of  the  punishment  inflicted  by  a// teachers ;  there  is  one 
here  and  there  who  in  the  spirit  of  true  teaching  has  apprehended  the 
real  nature  of  this  negative  force  in  teaching  and  has  learned  to 
employ  it  in  the  building  of  character. 

Whatever  may  be  the  theory  of  punishment  in  the  state,  or  of 
divine  punishment  of  disobedient  man,  "school  punishment"  is,  by 
the  very  circumstances  of  its  use,  essentially  educational.  Every  act  of 
punishment  in  the  school  must  be  an  educational  act ;  its  only  excuse 
for  being  is  that  it  may  serve  as  a  means  of  guiding  the  growing  life 
of  the  child.  Just  as  the  nurseryman  in  the  pruning  of  a  tree  cuts  off 
a  branch,  not  merely  that  he  may  remove  it  from  the  tree,  but  that  he 
may  thereby  foster  and  accelerate  the  growth  of  the  tree  as  a  whole,  so 


42  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION 

the  teacher  uses  punishment,  a  negative  means,  for  an  affirmative  result 
in  the  life  of  his  pupil.  This  can  be  accomplished  only  by  making  the 
state  of  pain  in  some  way  the  starting-point  for  a  healthy,  pleasurable 
experience,  that  is,  the  punishment  must  be  made  to  suggest  an  image 
for  a  constructive  life-movement.  This  cannot  be  done  by  dwelling 
upon  the  wrong  and  its  consequent  painful  results.  Prolonged  "  sor- 
row for  sin  "  is  not  a  fruitful  source  of  right  living.  Wood,  in  his 
Studies  in  the  Thought  World,  page  i68,  puts  this  matter  very  clearly: 

One  cannot  afford  to  think  much  about  evil,  even  for  the  well-intentioned 
purpose  of  its  suppression.  The  true  remedy  is  its  displacement.  Thought- 
space  given  to  it  confers  realism,  familiarity,  and  finally  dominion.  To 
silence  discordant  strings  in  ourselves  or  others  we  must  vibrate  their  oppo- 
sites.  To  truly  sympathize  with  a  friend  who  is  quivering  with  trouble  or 
sorrow  is  not  to  drop  into  his  rhythm  and  intensify  it — as  is  usual  —  but  to 
lift  his  consciousness  by  striking  a  higher  chord  in  unison.  The  road  to  men- 
tal and  physical  invigoration  lies  through  a  dynamics  of  formative  thought. 
Our  way  to  elevate  other  lives  is  also  through  their  creative  mental  energies. 

It  is  difficult  to  formulate  in  definite  statement  the  conception  of 
punishment  as  a  means  of  suggestive  guidance  to  right  living,  not 
because  of  the  uncertainty  of  the  principle,  but  because  the  common 
thought  of  the  race  is  thoroughly  saturated  by  a  totally  different  con- 
ception of  the  nature  and  use  of  punishment.  What  is  contended  for 
is  that  all  school  punishment  shall  lead  over  directly  to  the  affirmative 
side,  that  the  very  pain  itself  shall  blossom  into  the  happiness  attend- 
ant upon  right  living.  No  act  of  punishment  can  have  a  place  in  the 
school  that  is  not  definitely  designed  to  lead  to  an  experience  of  nor- 
mal life-functioning.  It  is  the  teacher's  business  to  form  life,  not  to 
reform  it,  and  every  corrective  measure  must  be  essentially  that  of  dis- 
placing the  evil  by  the  good.  A  simple  example  will  help  us  see  how 
this  can  be  done. 

A  mother  who  was  much  distressed  by  a  growing  caprice  and  petu- 
lance in  her  little  daughter  watched  for  an  opportunity  to  strengthen 
in  her  a  habit  of  rational  choice  and  patient  consideration  of  possible 
lines  of  conduct.  One  day  in  the  early  spring,  when  some  little 
friends  were  going  for  a  short  walk,  the  little  girl  was  eager  to  join 
them.  Her  mother  gave  her  consent,  with  the  provision  that  she  should 
put  on  a  light  jacket  as  protection  against  the  cool  air.  The  little 
maiden  promptly  said:  "Then  I  will  not  go!"  At  which  her  mother 
stepped  to  the  open  window  and  said  to  the  little  friends  waiting  out- 
side: "Jennie  says  she  will   not  go  today."     The  little  girls  went  off 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  43 

without  Jennie,  who  pleaded  in  vain  with  her  mother  to  be  permitted 
to  reconsider  her  hasty  decision.  The  mother,  though  firm,  was  very 
gentle  and  carefully  avoided  any.  crimination  or  intensifying  of  the 
sense  of  loss.  Her  whole  attitude  indicated  confidence  in  her  little 
daughter's  ability  to  order  her  life  more  rationally;  and  she  carefully 
watched  for  an  immediate  opportunity  to  direct  this  aroused  sense  of  a 
better  nature  to  a  constructive  expression.  This  she  found  in  a  sim- 
ple act  of  service.  A  magazine  was  to  be  carried  to  the  grandmother 
in  another  room  ;  the  opportunity  to  do  this  for  her  was  presented  by 
the  mother  to  her  child;  and  an  encouraging  smile  caused  the  awak- 
ened sense  of  ability  and  obligation  to  express  itself  in  a  definite  act 
of  rational  self-determination.  Thus  the  disappointment  in  itself  was 
the  image  center  out  of  which  under  gentle  guidance  a  genuine  expe- 
rience of  right  living  was  built.  The  conception  of  wrong  to  self  was 
the  suggestion  of  a  right  line  of  future  action.  The  mother  so 
applied  the  punishment  that  its  pain  was  chiefly  in  the  feeling  of  self- 
inflicted  injury  to  the  true  nature,  to  the  better  self,  the  selfish  regret 
for  the  pleasure  lost  being  a  mere  incident.  The  punishment  was 
made  simply  the  occasion  of  the  beginning  of  a  more  vigorous  life- 
movement.  The  wrong  act  was  seen  in  contrast  to  the  fulness  of  the 
true  normal  life,  a  discordant  note  in  its  harmony;  and  a  right  expe- 
rience was  suggested,  which  the  mother  wisely  led  to  its  comple- 
tion in  rationally  determined  expression. 

In  the  example  just  given  the  punishment  belongs  to  the  class 
known  as  "  natural  consequences,"  as  distinguished  from  "  arbitrary 
punishments"  in  which  the  penalty  has  no  causal  connection  with  the 
wrong  act.  But  even  in  this  latter  class  it  is  possible  to  get  affirmative 
results,  though  certainly  it  is  more  difficult  to  do.  Suppose  a  little  boy 
has  persisted  in  disobedience  until  his  father  says:  "Joe,  you  have  not 
tried  to  do  what  I  asked  you  to  do.  Now,  tomorrow  afternoon  when 
we  all  go  to  the  lake  you  cannot  go  with  us.  You  must  stay  at  home." 
Here  the  punishment  has  no  immediate  connection  with  the  offense  ; 
and  in  order  that  it  be  educational  in  its  effect,  the  child  must  have 
loving  confidence  in  his  father's  benevolent  attitude  toward  him  and 
in  his  knowledge  of  what  is  just  in  penalty  for  wrong  acts.  With  these 
conditions  this  wholly  artificial  penalty  may  be  made  to  contribute  to 
right  living.  It  is  here,  as  in  the  former  example,  merely  a  question 
of  promptly  leading  the  thought  to  the  ability  and  the  obligation  to  act 
in  accordance  with  a  newly  recognized  better  nature.  All  punishment, 
to  have  any  educational  value,  must  be   made   to  suggest   indirectly 


...•i%/c(: 


44  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION 

images  for  the  affirmative  reconstruction  of  experiences ;  and  in  the 
infliction  of  punishment  the  teacher  must  guide  the  pupil's  thought 
immediately  into  normal  channels.  Punishment,  like  all  true  educa- 
tional procedure,  \oo\%  forward,  not  backward,  and  deals  with  present 
life  with  a  view  to  its  complete  realization. 

Should  punishment  be  inflicted  for  the  mere  tieglect  to  do  right, 
where  there  is  no  overt  act  of  "wrong"?  In  some  cases  it  certainly 
should,  being  employed  as  a  means  of  quickening  the  life-movement. 
The  greater  part  of  what  is  called  "wrong"  is  only  the  negative  of 
right  life,  due  chiefly  to  ignorance  of  how  one  ought  to  live.  The 
fundamental  error  in  our  attempts  at  "  moral  education"  is  demand- 
ing of  children  that  they  know  on  authority  and  accept  without 
question  our  standards  of  right  conduct,  canons  that  we  have  realized 
in  our  own  consciousness  only  through  years  of  progressive  experien- 
cing. All  educative  punishment  is  instructive,  giving  clearer  knowl- 
edge of  the  nature  of  right  life.  In  punishment  the  teacher  is  to  teach 
his  pupil,  in  the  dual  sense  of  that  word;  that  is,  he  is  both  to  enlarge 
and  to  organize  his  pupil's  life. 

A  still  deeper  question  is :  Is  punishment  a  necessary  means  of 
education  ?  Doubtless  there  are  cases  in  which  we  must  answer  this 
in  the  affirmative;  but  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  in  which  punishment 
is  inflicted  in  the  school  and  in  the  home  it  is  not  necessary,  and  leads  to 
destructive  experiences.  Its  pain  too  often  but  further  disturbs  the  life- 
current,  which  might  otherwise  be  easily  directed  into  a  normal  flow 
by  immediate  constructive  guidance.  Often  the  child's  apparent  stub- 
bornness is  only  the  lack  of  a  proper  center  for  right  action.  Dr. 
Carpenter'  says: 

A  suggestion  kindly  and  skilfully  adapted  to  its  [the  child's]  automatic 
nature,  by  directing  the  turbid  current  of  thought  and  feeling  into  a  smoother 
channel,  and  guiding  the  activity  which  it  does  not  attempt  to  oppose,  shall 
bring  about  the  desired  result,  to  the  surprise  alike  of  the  baffled  teacher,  the 
passionate  pupil  and  the  perplexed  bystanders. 

Here  we  have  the  secret  of  all  guidance,  to  lead  from  the  evil  by  lead- 
ing toward  the  good.  What  does  it  matter  whether  we  leave  unrequited 
the  wrong  acts,  if  we  can  secure  the  right  life?  It  is  not  the  wrong 
corrected,  but  the  right  done,  that  is  the  measure  of  the  moral  life.  The 
physician  does  not  labor  to  destroy  the  disease,  but  to  make  the  man 
well.  His  motto,  like  that  of  the  true  teacher,  is:  Seize  upon  life 
wherever  it  may  be  found,  and  strengthen  and  develop  it,  thus  leaving 

^Mental  Physiology,  p.  135. 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  45 

the  weakness  and  the  wrong  to  drop  away  under  the  accelerated  move- 
ment of  the  healthy  life. 

A  good  example  of  this  mode  of  treating  wrong  life  is  given  in  a 
story  told  by  a  matron  of  the  reformatory  at  Elmira,  N.  Y.  A  woman 
who  became  an  inmate  of  the  institution  appeared  to  be  so  indurated  in 
her  evil  nature  and  malevolence  as  to  care  for  no  one  and  to  have  no 
healthy  interest  in  anything  about  her.  She  seemed  to  be  a  veritable 
Ishmaelite  in  the  loving  atmosphere  of  that  home,  and  no  sympathetic 
advance  met  with  any  other  response  than  the  growl  of  an  animal  at 
bay.  Her  life  had  been  so  poisoned  by  man's  inhumanity  that  she  saw 
good  in  no  one,  and  neither  recognized  nor  expressed  sympathy.  For 
many  days  she  lived — rather  existed — in  the  midst  of  her  physical  and 
social  environment  without  manifesting  any  normal  life-interest  that 
could  be  made  a  starting-point  for  a  healthy  growth.  Without  chiding 
or  attempting  to  intrude  into  this  barricaded,  barren  field,  the  matron 
waited  patiently,  watching  for  a  sign  of  the  real  life  which  she  had 
learned  to  expect  somewhere  in  even  the  most  warped  and  stunted 
characters.  At  last  the  door  was  found.  The  matron  placed  trays,  in 
which  some  silkworms  were  at  work  in  various  stages  of  development, 
where  the  woman  must  pass  them  in  the  meaningless  round  of  her 
daily  life.  For  two  or  three  days  she  passed  indifferently  by  the  active 
little  workers  and  their  loving  friend.  Then  she  stopped  and  con- 
temptuously watched  the  matron  tending  to  the  wants  of  her  little 
pets.  At  last  curiosity  forced  her  to  ask  what  they  were.  To  which 
the  wise  teacher,  carefully  concealing  the  hope  which  was  aroused  by 
this  question,  replied  :  "Oh  they  are  only  silkworms."  Each  day  the 
woman  came  to  watch  the  worms  fed  and  cared  for,  with  a  growing 
interest  that  broke  out  from  time  to  time  in  half-suppressed  questions. 
The  watchful  teacher,  biding  her  time,  at  last  seizing  the  right  oppor- 
tunity, said  one  morning  suddenly  to  her  watcher:  "  Mary,  I  must  go  on 
an  errand  for  a  moment,  to  speak  to  a  man  about  some  work.  Will  you 
please  take  care  of  the  worms  while  I  am  gone?"  The  ready  assent 
and  the  sympathetic  flash  of  light  in  Mary's  eyes  told  the  teacher  that 
the  victory  had  been  won.  Life  was  found,  and  it  only  remained  to 
guide  it.  From  this  slender  beginning  Mary  grew  under  loving  guid- 
ance to  true  womanhood,  a  marked  example  of  what  affirmative  teach- 
ing will  accomplish  where  punishment  in  any  form  would  only  have 
intensified  the  existing  evils.  The  first  suggestion  to  better  living  came 
doubtless  in  seeing  the  earnest  industry  of  the  little  worms.  In  them 
at  least  life  appeared  to  be  real  and  to  have  some  meaning  in  its  activi- 


46  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION 

ties.  Then  the  loving  care  of  the  matron  for  her  helpless  little  charges 
suggested  that  one  life  is  in  some  sense  responsible  for  happiness  in 
another  and  that  all  is  not  selfishness.  Then  there  came,  in  the  request 
for  the  slight  service,  a  suggestion  of  personal  worth  recognized  by 
another.  Thus  unobtrusively  did  one  life  kindle  to  a  glow  the  dying 
embers  of  another.  This  is  what  may  take  place — what  must  take 
place;  there  is  no  other  way — in  the  moral  guidance  of  the  schoolroom. 
The  "bad  boy"  is  made  good hy  leading  out  to  self-realization  the  ger- 
minant  goodness  of  his  normal  humanity.  Human  beings  are  born  to 
live  right,  and  the  guiding  touch  of  the  teacher  may  aid  in  living. 

NEGATIVE    IMPLICATIONS    OF    THE    LAW. 

The  law  of  educative  guidance,  as  formulated  on  page  3 1 ,  carries  with 
it  two  important  negative  implications :  first,  that  there  can  be  no 
education  apart  from  suggestion;  second,  that  there  can  be  no  educa- 
tion where  there  is  no  conscious  reaction  on  the  part  of  the  pupil  to 
the  stimulation  applied  by  the  teacher.  While  the  discussion  of  these 
two  implied  propositions  is  in  effect  a  restatement  from  the  negative 
side  of  the  thought  already  presented  in  explanation  and  vindication 
of  the  law  itself,  such  further  defining  and  explication  seems  to  be 
demanded  in  view  of  the  muddy  thought  in  vogue  regarding  educa- 
tional principles. 

One  person  cannot  exert  educative  influence  upon  the  life  of 
another  mechanically;  that  is,  he  cannot  manipulate  the  factors  of  the 
life  as  he  handles  things  in  his  material  environment.  He  cannot  dis- 
solve a  state  of  consciousness  by  the  introduction  of  a  reaction  agent 
with  the  definiteness  and  certainty  of  a  chemist.  He  cannot  force 
into  the  life  of  another  an  element  wholly  foreign  to  it,  and  hence  he 
cannot  control  that  Wit  from  without.  All  his  control  must  be  exer- 
cised through  elements  found  within  the  life  itself  and  by  means  of 
the  life's  own  normal  activities.  One  may  knock  at  the  door,  but  he 
cannot  force  an  entrance ;  it  is  only  as  the  life  itself  gives  him  welcome 
that  he  can  participate  in  it.  The  teacher  cannot  give  his  "knowl- 
edge" to  his  pupil;  he  can  only  express  what  he  knows,  /.  e.,  what  he 
is,  in  the  hope  that  his  pupil  may  be  induced  to  know,  i.  e.,  to  be, 
something  similar  in  general  content  and  form.  A  man's  knowledge 
is  himself,  and  it  cannot  be  transferred,  either  en  masse  or  in  its  ele- 
ments, to  another;  also  the  pupil's  knowledge  is  his  own  creation,  the 
manifestation  of  his  own  life,  and  cannot  be  appropriated  mechanically 
from  the  experiences  of  another.     Each  person's  character  is   unique 


SUGGESTION  IN  ED  UCA  TION  4  7 

in  its  individuality.  It  groivs  naturally  through  simple  life-functioning 
and  cannot  be  made  by  external  manipulation.  Our  law,  then,  on 
the  negative  side  means  this :  There  can  be  no  change  wrought  in  the 
life  of  another  by  any  other  means  than  the  suggestion  of  image  centers  to 
be  realized  in  cotnplete  experiencing  by  the  self-determined  action  of  the  life 
itself. 

Even  by  suggestion  we  cannot  make  of  the  life  of  another  anything 
we  will  to  make.  We  can  at  most  only  modify  the  life  in  an  indirect 
and  partial  manner.  The  teacher  does  not  deal  with  the  life  of  his 
pupil  as  a  potter  with  his  clay,  but  more  as  a  machinist  with  the  force 
of  gravity.  He  accepts  and  utilizes  forces  that  he  cannot  create  or 
destroy.  He  is  powerless  to  do  more  than  to  direct  in  a  general  way 
the  character-forming  process.  Into  the  contending  n)ultitude  of 
experience  centers  he  brings  by  suggestion  his  mite  of  life-value,  and 
can  only  watch  hopefully  that  it  may  not  be  wholly  smothered  in  the 
surging  mass.  He  does  not  begin  his  work  with  a  tabula  rasa  of  an 
absolutely  unformed  life-structure,  to  educate  ab  initio  in  the  life- 
process.  Hereditary  bias  has  already  determined,  in  large  measure, 
what  the  life  shall  be,  and  his  work  as  an  educator  is  merely  to  modify 
as  rationally  as  he  can  that  which  he  cannot  successfully  oppose  or 
re-create.  The  tendencies  and  habitual  states  which  the  pupil  has 
inherited  from  his  ancestors  constitute  already  at  birth  a  certain  char- 
acter which  stubbornly  resists  the  teacher's  interference.  He  must 
reckon  with  this,  and  content  himself  with  improving  it  by  gentle 
guidance.  The  environment  of  the  pupil's  life  is  also  a  powerful  force 
to  which  the  teacher  must  adapt  his  educational  ideals  and  methods. 
The  child's  physical  and  social  environment  touches  his  life  at  a  thou- 
sand points,  starting  myriads  of  experiences  that  are  wholly  beyond 
the  teacher's  knowledge  and  ability  to  control  for  educational  ends. 
It  is,  besides,  from  this  same  environment  that  he  is  to  take  the  educa- 
tive materials  which  he  employs  in  his  intentional  enriching  and  direct- 
ing of  his  pupil's  life.  He  is  limited  to  the  use  of  the  materials  at 
hand,  and  cannot  at  will  import  from  other  fields  of  life  that  which 
his  ideal  would  indicate  to  be  the  most  desirable.  Hence  we  see  again 
that  the  teacher's  function,  while  noble  in  its  conception,  is  in  its  real- 
ization narrowed  to  a  comparatively  small  field.  He  can  only  guide  the 
existing  life  by  unobtrusive  suggestive  touch. 

There  can  be  no  educative  guidance  without  reaction  by  the  pupil. 
This  idea  is  involved  in  the  very  term  "educative  guidance."  Only 
that  which  has  independent  motion  can  be  "guided."     To  guide  is  to 


48  SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION 

point  out  the  way  to  a  moving  body,  to  direct  in  a  determined  course; 
and  that  which  is  so  piloted  and  directed  must  have  motion,  given  to 
it  by  some  power  which  can  be  distinguished  from  the  directing  power. 
A  shuttle  can  be  guided  through  the  warp  ;  a  horse  may  be  guided 
along  the  highway;  or  a  bicycle  may  be  guided  by  a  force  clearly  dis- 
tinguishable from  the  propelling  force.  A  merely  inert  thing,  in  a 
state  of  rest,  cannot  be  guided;  there  is  nothing  to  guide.  The  per- 
fectly passive  object  may  be  propelled,  but  it  cannot  while  passive  be 
guided.  That  which  is  guided  must  not  only  be  in  action,  but  it  must 
also  be  possible  to  modify  that  action  by  the  new  force  applied.  In 
the  case  of  the  self-active  mind,  this  modifiability  must  of  necessity 
consist  in  the  conscious  adaptation  of  the  mind  itself  to  the  new  cir- 
cumstance. To  direct  the  development  of  the  life  of  another  person 
is  to  determine  an  internal  state  by  external  touch ;  it  is  to  cause  the 
conscious  propelling  force  to  manifest  itself  in  a  new  direction.  Hence 
the  educative  guidance  is  accomplished  through  the  conscious  response 
which  the  pupil's  life  makes  to  the  suggestive  touch.  The  teacher 
brings  to  the  self-active  and  self-determined  life  an  interesting  fact; 
and  the  life  reacts  upon  it  by  modifying  its  own  movement  so  as  to 
incorporate  the  new  element.  Life  in  all  its  forms  progresses  chiefly 
by  responding  to  stimulation  from  without.  In  education  the  stimulus 
is  rationally  applied  by  another  for  the  purpose  of  securing  the 
response.  It  is  the  response,  not  the  stimulus,  that  contributes  to  the 
development.  To  guide  educationally  is  to  secure  such  reactions  to 
the  chosen  stimuli  as  will  lead  to  fuller  and  more  vigorous  life. 

There  can  be  no  "suggestion"  without  a  "reaction,"  that  is,  a  fact 
becomes  a  suggestion  only  through  the  reaction  which  it  stimulates. 
To  suggest  to  another  is  to  so  touch  his  life  with  the  chosen  materials 
as  to  cause  him  to  accept  it  actively  as  something  desired  in  his  life, 
to  cause  him  to  react  upon  it.  It  is  not  the  food  selected  in  the  market, 
or  prepared  in  the  kitchen,  that  nourishes  the  man ;  it  is  what  he 
appropriates  at  the  table.  While  good  "service"  has  much  to  do  with 
feeding  the  body,  it  is,  after  all,  the  appetite  and  digestion  of  the 
eater  that  gives  the  desired  growth.  Though  this  idea  of  active  appro- 
priation is  implicit  in  all  educational  theory,  it  has  seldom  received 
the  emphasis  which  its  importance  demands,  and  in  practice  it  is  often 
wholly  forgotten.  Even  in  this  day  in  which  "apperception"  has 
become  a  familiar  term  in  our  pedagogical  literature,  we  are  still  far 
from  recognizing  its  real  significance  in  the  teaching  process.  The 
great    majority  of  teachers  in  all  grades  of  instruction — elementary, 


UNIVERSn 

^CALIFq2>i>' 
SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  ^^^9 

secondary,  and  higher — act  as  if  to  teach  were  to  dispose  of  certain 
educational  materials  by  a  systematic  and  forceful  presentation  to  the 
pupils.  The  current  conception,  however  vaguely  held,  appears  to  be 
that  to  know  clearly  the  "knowledge"  to  be  imparted  and  have  certain 
acquaintance  with  devices  of  "method"  is  to  be  fully  equipped  for 
success  in  teaching.  So  qualified,  the  teacher  needs  but  to  j)rcscnt  the 
knowledge  according  to  the  recognized  rules  of  his  art ;  the  desired 
result  is  sure  to  follow.  Teaching  is  thus  viewed  solely  from  the  side 
of  the  teacher,  who  is  thought  to  be  able  to  introduce  into  the  life  of  a 
tractable  pupil  elements  at  will.  But  our  law  negatively  implies  that 
this  cannot  be  the  case  ;  in  it  the  words  "and  reaction"  were  added  to 
emphasize  the  pupil's  part  in  the  act  of  suggestion.  In  teaching  the 
teacher's  eye  should  be  upon  the  life-movement  of  his  pupil,  watching 
for  the  reaction.  To  teach  is  to  instruct  through  the  nornial  reactions 
of  the  pupil. 

PEDAGOGICAL    CONCLUSIONS. 

There  are  three  important  pedagogical  truths  that  may  be  deduced 
directly  from  this  law  of  education  through  suggestion  :  first,  educa- 
tion is  strictly  an  affirmative  process  ;  second,  it  is  purely  a  personal 
matter;  and,  third,  its  goal  is  character,  not  mere  "knowledge"  or 
"ability."  These  three  formal  propositions  are  basal  articles  of  an 
educational  creed,  a  warp  of  fundamental  truths  into  which  one  may 
weave  his  whole  pedagogical  theory.  To  accept  them  as  "a  living 
faith"  is  to  establish  rational  character  as  a  teacher,  and  to  transform 
spasmodic  action  into  systematic  procedure.  Each  proposition  has 
its  own  distinctive  value  and  importance,  which  we  must  now  briefly 
set  forth. 

Education  is  affirmative  in  its  aim,  in  its  means,  and  in  its  methods. 
The  teacher  seeks  to  secure  a  positive  result  in  the  life  of  his  pupil.  It 
is  his  wish  to  guide  the  child  to  the  realization  of  the  possibilities  of 
his  humanity.  "To  prepare  us  for  complete  living  is  the  function 
which  education  has  to  discharge.'"  While  the  child  would  naturally 
attain  to  a  degree  of  life  unaided,  it  is  possible  by  right  guidance  to 
lead  him  into  a  fuller  life.  The  aim  of  education  is  to  give  more  life. 
The  world's  greatest  Teacher  spoke  of  his  work  thus  :  "I  am  come 
that  they  might  have  life,  and  that  they  might  have  it  more  abun- 
dantly" (John  lo  :  lo). 

The  means  of  education  are  positive  life-factors.  It  is  the  function 
of   the   teacher  to   stimulate  the  child  to   more    vigorous  and    more 

I  Spencer,  Education,  p.  31,  first  edition. 


5  o  SUGGESTION  IN  ED  UCA  TION 

rationally  ordered  living.  This  he  does  by  employing  the  materials 
of  life  itself,  materials  found  in  the  child's  contact  with  the  physical 
and  social  environment.  The  accumulated  results  of  race-experiences 
found  in  the  social  consciousness  are  a  ready  fund  for  the  teacher's 
use.  What  man  has  lived  through  in  constructive  growth  is  available 
material  for  enhancing  the  growth  of  this  "heir  of  all  the  ages."  The 
various  "branches  of  study,"  the  differentiated  sciences,  are  food  for 
human  life.  Their  preserved  and  logically  organized  truths  are  to  be 
experienced  anew  by  the  pupil  under  the  stimulative  guidance  of  his 
teacher.  Thus  from  the  actual  experiences  of  man,  from  his  normal 
life-movements,  are  to  be  selected  the  educative  materials  for  the 
teacher's  use.     He  uses  life  to  form  life. 

All  true  educative  method  is  affirmative.  It  consists  essentially  in 
guiding  existing  life,  seeking  to  reach  fulness  of  life  by  developing 
the  life  that  already  is  in  germ  at  least.  Just  as  it  is  no  part  of  the 
teacher's  work  to  create  life,  so  it  is  not  at  all  his  business  to  check 
life  or  to  destroy  it.  To  "convert"  one,  intellectually  at  least,  is  not 
to  reverse  the  current  of  his  life,  but  to  guide  it  in  a  more  rational 
flow.  The  teacher  is  to  aid  his  pupil  in  living.  He  is  to  make  life 
easier  for  him,  to  assist  him  in  appropriating  life-materials  and  in 
building  his  life-structure.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  teacher  shall 
point  out  where  the  materials  lie  and  later  "test"  to  see  whether  they 
have  been  appropriated.  Such  general  supervision  lacks  an  essential 
element  of  true  teaching;  it  furnishes  no  immediate  aid  to  the  builder. 
There  is  an  unreasonable  opposition  among  teachers,  in  their  theoreti- 
cal utterances  at  least,  to  "aiding  pupils  in  their  work,"  evidently 
born  of  a  fear  that  "the  teacher  may  do  the  pupil's  work  for  him." 
There  is  underneath  this  the  absurd  assumption  that  the  teacher  may 
experience  for  his  pupil  and  present  to  him  in  some  form  the  results. 
This  is  manifestly  false  from  any  rational  psychological  conception  of 
the  cognitive  process.  All  the  "results"  of  life  that  anyone  can  have 
are  simply  what  he  himself  has  lived  through.  It  is  the  teacher's  sole 
function  to  aid  the  pupil  in  living',  that  is  all  that  he  can  do.  This 
aiding  is  always  in  the  last  analysis  positive  direction  of  the  life-forces 
through  affirmative  suggestion.  The  true  teacher  gives  freely  to  the 
life,  struggling  for  self-realization,  the  ideals  and  the  material  for  a 
noble  structure  and  sympathetically  aids  the  architect. 

Education  is  purely  a  personal  matter.  It  is  the  influence  of  one 
person  upon  another  with  a  view  to  improving  his  life.  The  teacher 
acknowledges  his  pupil's  personality  ;  that  is,  he  treats  him  as  a  peer 


SUGGESTION  IN  ED  UCA  TION  5  i 

in  the  realm  of  self-determined  living.  His  attitude  toward  him  is 
that  toward  a  subject  to  be  acknowledged  and  reckoned  with,  not 
toward  a  thing  to  be  manipulated  ;  consequently  his  work  is  that  of 
sympathetic  co-operation,  not  of  external  control. 

Pedagogy  is  essentially  an  ethical  science,  dealing  with  right  conduct 
of  the  teacher  in  his  relation  to  his  pupil.  It  is  normative,  treating  of 
how  the  teacher  as  such  ought  to  act  toward  his  pupil  in  order  to  secure 
for  him  the  most  complete  life.  The  teacher,  with  a  high  ideal  of  what 
his  pupil's  life  ought  to  be  and  a  clear  conception  of  the  possibility  of 
guiding  that  life  toward  such  ideal  end,  seeks  ethically  to  order  his 
own  life  for  educational  purposes.  The  fundamental  question  is  one 
of  ideal  conduct  by  the  teacher  with  specific  reference  to  its  influence  on 
his  pupil.  It  is  with  the  rightness  or  wrongness  of  the  teacher's  lifeaj 
a  teacher  that  the  norms  of  educational  science  have  to  do.  Also  the 
pupil's  conduct  as  a  pupil  must  be  ethically  ri^ht.  The  two  parties 
are  to  live  right  with  each  other  under  the  peculiar  relations  of  teacher 
and  taught,  each  recognizing  the  personality  of  the  other  and  accom- 
modating his  own  life  to  it.  Pedagogy  is  a  "practical  science"  in  the 
sense  which  Mackenzie'  gives  to  that  term:  "A  science,  it  is  said, 
teaches  us  to  know,  and  an  art  to  do;  but  a  practical  science  teaches  us 
to  know  how  to  do."  Pedagogy  is  the  practical  science  of  the  teacher's 
conduct  as  a  teacher. 

Teaching  is  necessarily  individual  in  its  character.  The  teacher 
cannot  teach  a  "class"  en  masse;  the  class  as  such  has  no  personal  life 
to  guide.  While  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  best  teaching  is  done 
with  pupils  associated  in  classes,  the  true  teacher  does  not  on  that 
account  overlook  the  characteristic  feature  of  his  own  function,  namely, 
to  guide  the  life  of  the  individual  pupil  to  its  highest  realization  ;  he 
simply  individualizes  his  teaching  ;  that  is,  he  guides  individual  life  in 
the  social  class  relation.  In  all  teaching  there  are  but  two  parties 
immediately  concerned  ;  a  teacher  and  a  pupil.  The  social  atmosphere 
of  the  class  and  the  educative  material  employed  are  alike  incidents  of 
the  work  of  the  guiding  of  one  life  by  the  sympathetic  participation  of 
another. 

The  teacher  is  ipso  facto  a  fellow-student.  He  guides  his  pupil  in 
living  by  living  himself.  He  cannot  direct  his  pupil's  experience 
except  through  his  own  immediate  experience.  It  is  his  life-current 
that  touches  the  life-current  of  his  pupil,  flowing  into  it  and  modifying 
it  by  its  very  vital  force  itself.     He  "  lives  with  his  pupil,"  participating 

^  Manual  of  Ethics,  p.  11. 


5  2  SUGGESTION  IN  ED  UCA  TION 

in  his  life  and  contributing  to  it  from  his  own  fuller  life.  The  pupil 
returns  life  for  life,  entering  in  a  very  important  way  into  the  daily 
experiences  of  his  teacher,  so  that  it  may  be  truly  said  that  not  only 
does  the  teacher  live  on  an  ever-widening  life  in  the  lives  of  his  pupils, 
but  also  the  pupils  live  in  the  life  of  the  teacher.  The  contact  of  the 
two  lives  in  the  schoolroom  is  characterized  by  a  reciprocal  interaction 
that  should  contribute  to  the  bettering  of  both  lives.  The  teacher  as 
the  stronger  force,  however,  may  intentionally  determine  the  general 
character  of  the  resultant — not  only  the  character  of  his  influence  upon 
his  pupil,  but  also  indirectly  the  influence  of  his  pupil  upon  himself. 
He  may  so  order  his  own  experiences  and  so  control  his  pupil's  experi- 
ences as  to  enrich  and  strengthen  both  lives  ;  but  he  cannot  direct  his 
pupil's  life  educationally  without  participating  in  that  life.  He  cannot 
show  another  how  to  live  without  living  himself. 

Not  mere  "  knowledge"  or  "  ability,"  but  character  is  the  final  goal 
of  all  true  educational  effort.  Education  has  a  definite  unified  aim, 
which  is  the  same  for  all  children.  If  the  aim  were  knowledge  as  such, 
it  would  be  diversified  ;  for  there  are  many  knowledges,  many  forms  of 
knowing  arising  in  the  various  circumstances  of  human  life.  One 
would  seek  one  knowledge  as  essential  for  a  mercantile  life  ;  another, 
for  a  military  life  ;  another,  for  a  professional  life  ;  and  so  on,  each 
avocation  demanding  its  peculiar  "knowledge,"  and  hence  giving  a 
separate  educational  aim.  Similarly,  if  the  aim  were  "  ability,"  grant- 
ing that  it  can  be  distinguished  from  knowledge,  there  would  still  be 
as  many  separate  aims  as  there  are  abilities  to  do  particular  works, 
each  skill  furnishing  for  its  craftsman  a  definite  educational  aim.  In 
the  naive  view  this  would  seem  to  be  the  natural  and  desirable  function 
of  education  ;  each  man  should  be  prepared  by  special  development 
for  the  particular  part  which  he  is  to  perform  in  the  social  body.  In 
this  way  not  only  the  best  social  service  would  be  secured,  but  also 
the  greatest  enjoyment  of  life  for  the  individual.  But  this  is  only  a 
superficial  view  of  the  matter  ;  education  is  essentially  one  in  its  aim. 
It  may  be  directed  to  a  definitely  conceived  common  end  for  all  men, 
and  yet  be  applicable  to  all  forms  of  human  activity,  and  even  to  all 
shades  of  individual  personality.  In  fact,  it  is  only  such  a  unified  aim 
that  can  give  to  all  education  serious  purpose  and  make  the  teacher's 
work  most  fruitful  in  his  pupil's  life.  It  is  the  high  ideal  that  lifts  the 
imperfect  and  commonplace  into  perfect  realization. 

Laurie  has  said  that:  "The  aim  of  education  is  always  an  ideal 
aim,  for  it  contemplates  the  completion  of  a  man  —  the  realization  in 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  53 

each  man  of  what  each  has  in  him  to  become."  Herbart  defined  such 
an  aim  more  definitely  as  "  the  development  of  moral  character." 
"Good  character"  in  the  Herbartian  sense  may  be  defined  as  such  an 
integrity  of  life  as  enables  the  person  wisely  to  direct  all  his  experiences 
for  his  own  good  and  the  blessing  of  his  fellow-man  —  a  life  fitted  for 
"every  good  word  and  work."  With  such  an  aim  the  teacher  would 
endeavor,  not  only  to  develop  each  pupil  in  accordance  with  his  life- 
needs  and  capacities,  but — what  is  far  higher  —  would  strive  to  secure 
in  him  a  realization  of  true  manhood.  "Let  him  first  be  a  man,''  should 
be  the  watchword  of  the  teacher.  The  aim  of  education  is  thus  organic, 
not  acquisitive  ;  it  seeks  to  help  one  to  be,  not  to  have.  Its  end  is  not 
only  integrity,  but  fulness  of  life  —  not  only  a  well-organized  and 
definitely  centered  life,  but  "  a  many-sided  life."  Such  an  education 
produces  what  President  Thwing  has  characterized  as  "  not  narrow 
specialists,  but  broad  men  sharpened  to  a  point." 

The  immediate  aim  of  education  is  present  character  for  present 
life.  It  seeks  to  actualize  the  potentialities  of  the  present  stage  of  life 
as  a  means  of  realizing  the  whole  possibilities  of  the  life.  Complete 
living  in  the  whole  life  is  to  be  attained  to  by  daily  approximations  in 
the  actual  present  of  that  life.  By  guiding  suggestively  the  growth  of' 
the  present  the  perfect  stature  of  the  whole  is  secured. 


UNIVER- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Explanatory  Note. — In  selecting  from  the  mass  of  "  references  "  accumulated 
during  the  preparatory  reading  for  this  thesis  such  bibliography  as  will  be  helpful  to 
another  who  cares  to  investigate  the  subject,  it  has  not  been  the  aim  to  restrict  the 
list  rigorously  to  books  and  articles  that  support  the  position  taken  by  the  writer. 
The  publications  in  the  first  division  show  the  current  views  of  the  function  of  sugges- 
tion in  the  development  of  human  life,  though  by  no  means  all  of  those  enumerated 
definitely  treat  of  normal  suggestion.  The  presence  of  so  many  titles  concerning 
suggestion  in  abnormal  life  shows  how  little  the  real  field  of  the  thesis  has  been 
worked.  The  conception  of  affirmative  guidance  in  education  characterizes  the 
writings  of  the  second  division,  though  in  general  they  contain  little  explicit  reference 
to  suggestion  as  the  means  of  such  guidance.  The  list  could  be  much  extended,  but 
the  books  and  articles  named  are  fairly  typical.  In  the  third  list  are  cited  the  few 
sources  in  which  there  is  some  definite  statement  regarding  education  through  sug- 
gestion. There  are  doubtless  more,  but  only  these  were  accessible  to  the  writer. 
The  order  of  the  titles  has  no  significance. 

SUGGESTION    IN    NORMAL    AND    ABNORMAL    LIFE. 

S\d\s,  Psychology  of  Suggestion.     Appleton,  1898. 

Bernheim,  Suggestive  Therapeutics,  Herter's  translation.     Putnam,  1889. 

Schmidkunz,  Psychologic  der  Suggestion.     Stuttgart,  1891. 

Waldstein,  Sub-Conscious  Self.     Scribner. 

Binet  and  F6re,  Animal  Magnetism.     Appleton,  1892, 

MoW,  Hypnotism.     London:    Scott,  1899. 

Tarde,  Les  lois  de  F imitation.     Paris,  1890. 

'Qdiid-wm,  Handbook  of  Psychology.     Holt,  189 1. 

]2imts,  Principles  of  Psychology.     Holt,  1890. 

Ladd,  Psychology,  Descriptive  and  Explanatory.     Scribner,  1894. 

Titchener,  A  Primer  of  Psychology.     Macmillan,  1898. 

Yo\x\\\€&,  La  psychologic  des  idies-forces.     Paris,  1893. 

'Qen&dxVx,  Hypnotisfnus  und  Suggestion.     Leipzig,  1894. 

(ZdiVpenXtT,  Principles  of  Mental  Physiology,  to\iri\\  edition,     Appleton,  1876. 

'QxntX.,  Alterations  of  Personality,  Baldwin's  translation.     Appleton,  1896. 

Kiilpe,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  Titchener's  translation.     Macmillan,  1893. 

Sioni,  Analytic  Psychology.     London:   Sonnenschein,  1896. 

Wundt,  Grinidriss  der  Psychologic.     Leipzig,  1896. 

Royce,  Studies  of  Good  and  Evil.     Appleton,  1898. 

Lehmann,  Die  Hypnose  und  die  damit  verwandten  normalen  Zustdnde.  Leip- 
zig, 1890. 

Tvikt,  Sleep-Walking  and  Hypnotism.     London,  1884. 

Hart,  Hypnotisfn,  Alesmeristn,  and  the  New  Witchcraft.     London,  1893. 

Binet,  On  Double  Conscioicsness.     Open  Court  Pub.  Co.,  1894. 

De  Manac^Tne,  Sleep;  its  Physiology,  Pathology,  Hygiene,  and  Psychology. 
Scribner,  1897. 

Janet,  L'automatisme  psychologique.     Paris,  1893. 

SioW,  Suggestion  und  Hypnotismus  in  der   Volkerpsychologie.     Leipzig,  1894. 

Prayer,  The  Mind  of  the  Child  {2  vols.).     Appleton,  1888-89. 

54 


SUGGESTION  IN  EDUCATION  55 

Yx^yt,x,  Mental  Development  of  the  Child.     Appleton,  1893. 

Baldwin,  Mental  Development  in  the  Child  and  in  the  Race.  Macmillan, 
i8g4. 

Baldwin,  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations  in  Mental  Development.  Mac- 
millan, 1897. 

Hudson,  The  Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena.     McClurg,  1893. 


Newbold,  "Suggestion  in  Therapeutics."     Dental  Cosmos,  February,  1894. 

Hudson,  "Suggestion  as  a  Factor  in  Human  Life."  Medico-Legal  Journal, 
December,  1896. 

Barrows,  "  Suggestion  without  Hypnotism."  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  Vol.  XII,  London,  1897. 

Sidis,  "A  Study  of  Mental  Epidemics."     Century,  October,  i8g6. 

Binet  and  Henri,  "De  la  suggestibility  naturelle  chez  les  enfants."  Revue 
philosophique.  Vol.  XXXVIII,  Paris,  1894. 

Newbold,  "  Normal  and  Heightened  Suggestibility,  etc."  Popular  Science 
Monthly,  December,  1895;  January,  1896;  March,  1896;  April,  1896; 
June,  1896  ;  July,  1896;  and  other  articles  by  the  same  writer. 

Mason,  "  Educational  Uses  of  Hypnotism."  North  American  Review,  Octo- 
ber, 1896. 

Baldwin,  "Imitation:  A  Chapter  in  the  Natural  History  of  Consciousness." 
Mind,  January,  1894. 

Royce,  "Preliminary  Report  on  Imitation."    Psychological  Review,  May,  1895. 

Royce,  "The  Imitative  Functions  and  Their  Place  in  Human  Nature." 
Centtiry,  May,  1894. 

Baldwin,  "A  Further  Word  on  Imitation."     Century,  December,  1894. 

Ross,  "  Social  Control  —  Suggestion."  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Sep- 
tember, 1896. 

Carus,  "  Suggestion  and  Suggestibility."     Open  Court,  January  9,  1900. 

Fry,  "Imitation  as  a  Factor  in  Human  Progress."  Littelfs  Living  Age,  June 
22,  1889. 

Small,  "The  Suggestibility  of  Children."  Pedagogic  Seminary,  Vol.  IV, 
1896-97. 

Fillebrown,  "  Hypnotic  Suggestion  as  an  Obtudent  and  Sedative  ; "  paper  with 
discussion  in  World's  Columbian  Dental  Congress.  Dental  Cosmos,  Sep- 
tember, 1893. 

EDUCATION    IN    GENERAL. 

Ha-rxxs,  Psychologic  Foundations  of  Education.     Appleton,  1898. 
Spencer,  Education :  Intellectual,  Moral,  and  Physical.     Appleton,   1861. 
Dewey,  The  School  and  Society.     University  of  Chicago  Press,  1899. 
Hopkins,  The  Spirit  of  the  New  Education.     Lee  &  Shepard,  1892. 
Locke,   Some   Thoughts   Concerning  Education,    Quick's  edition.      London, 

1880-84. 
Pestalozzi,  Leonard  and  Gertrude,  Channing's  translation.     Heath,  1888. 
Froebel,  The  Education  of  Man,  Hailmann's  translation.    Appleton,  1887. 
Parker,  Talks  on  Pedagogics.     Kellogg,  1894. 
Bryant,  Short  Studies  in  Character.     London. 
Bryant,   The  Teaching  of  Morality.     London,  1897. 
Willmann,  Didactik  als  Bildungslehre  nach  ihren  Beziehungen  zur  Social- 

forschung  und  zur  Geschichte  der  Bildung.     Braunschweig,  1 895 . 
Tompkins,  The  Philosophy  of  Teaching.     Ginn,  1894. 
Hughes,  FroebeFs  Educational  Laws.     Appleton,  1 897. 


5  6  SUGGES  TION  IN  ED  UCA  TION 

Spalding,  Thoughts  and  Theories  of  Life  and  Education.     McClurg,  1897. 

Spalding,  Things  of  the  Mind.     McClurg,  1894. 

Spalding,  Education  and  the  Higher  Life.     McClurg,  1890. 

Hanus,  Educational  Aims  and  Educational  Values.     Macmillan,  1899. 

Vincent,  The  Social  Mind  and  Education.     Macmillan,  1897. 

Hailmann,  "The  Place  and  Development  of  Purpose  in  Education."  Pro- 
ceedings ofN.  E.  A.,  1889. 

Wiggin,  Children's  Rights ;  A  Book  of  Nursery  Logic.  Houghton,  Mifflin 
&  Co.,  1892. 

Harrison,  A  Study  of  Child- Nature  frotn  the  Kindergarten  Standpoint.  Chi- 
cago Kindergarten  College,  1895. 

Abbott,  Gentle  Measures  in  the  Management  and  Training  of  the  Young. 
Harper,  1871. 

"D^^Q^',  My  Pedagogical  Creed.     Kellogg,  1897. 

Small,  Demands  of  Sociology  upon  Pedagogy.     Bound  with  the  lastnamed 

McMurry,  The  Elements  of  General  Method.  Public-School  Publishing  Co., 
1893. 

Wood,  Studies  in  the  Thought  World;  or  Practical  Mind  Art.  Lee  & 
Shepard,  1896. 

Tompkins,  "The  Implications  and  Applications  of  the  Principle  of  Self- 
Activity  in  Education."     Proceedings  of  N.  E.  A.,  1899. 

Fouill^e,  Education  from  a  National  Standpoint,  Greenstreet's  translation. 
Appleton,  1892. 

WoVaxoo\i,  School  Managetnent.     Barnes,  1872. 

James,  Talks  to  Teachers  on  Psychology,  and  to  Students  on  Some  of  Life's 
Ideals.     Holt,  1899. 

Rosenkranz,  The  Philosophy  of  Education,  Brackett's  translation.  Appleton, 
1887. 

Laurie,  Lectures  on  Language  and  Linguistic  Method  in  the  School  (Lecture 
I).     Edinburgh,  1890. 

Butler,  The  Meaning  of  Education.     Macmillan,  1898. 


Dewey,  "Ethical  Principles  Underlying  Education."    Third  Yearbook  of  the 

National  Herbart  Society,  1 897. 
Briggs,    "The  Transition  from  School  to  College."  Atlantic,  March,  1900. 
Thayer,  "Judicious  Aid  to  Pupils,"  paper  read  before  the  Harvard  Teachers' 

Association.    Educational  Review,  May,  1900. 
Howerth,  "The  Social  End  of  Education."  Fifth  Yearbook  of  the  National 

Herbart  Socic  *v,  1899. 

EDUCATION    THROUGH    SUGGESTION, 

Guyau,   Education  et  hirSditi.    Paris,  1892.    There  is  also  a  good   English 

translation  of  this  valuable  book  by  Greenstreet,  Scribner. 
Halleck,    The  Education  of  the  Central  Nervous  System.     Macmillan,  1896. 
Thomas,  La  suggestion  ;  son  role  dans  P education.     Paris,  1895. 
Wendt,  "  Suggestion,  padagogische."   Rein's  Encyklopddisches  Handbuch  der 

Pddagogik,  Vol.  VI,  1899. 
Huntington,  Unconscious  Tuition.     Kellogg,  1888. 
Queyrat,  Les  caractires  et  T education  morale.     Paris,  1896. 
Blow,    Symbolic  Education;    A    Commentary  on   Froebel's   "Mother  Play." 

Appleton,  1894. 
Harris    and   others,    Psychological    Tendencies — The    Study    of   Imitation. 

Report  of  National  Commissioner  of  Education  for  1896-97. 


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